November 8, 2006 – Olympus Corp. announced yesterday increased income and sales, particularly of digital cameras, are up by nearly 17 percent, according to their financial reports for the first half of fiscal year 2007.
In the first half of the year, ending September 30, Olympus' net income significantly rose to 18.7 trillion yen ($159.5 million USD) , jumping from last year’s 2.1 trillion yen ($19.2 million), according to Olympus' 2007 H1 consolidated results which were released yesterday.
Net sales also grew to 484.6 trillion yen ($4.1 billion), rising from 476.2 trillion yen ($4 billion) in the first half of 2005. A significant portion of the overall net sales growth are attributed to digital camera sales. In the first half of this fiscal year, Olympus digital camera sales totaled a reported 120.2 trillion yen in sales ($1.02 billion), jumping 16.9 percent from last year's 103.4 trillion yen ($878.4 million).
Because of strong digital camera sales, Olympus increased their predictions for digital camera sales this year by 12.6 percent to an expected 257 trillion yen ($2.18 million).
Olympus attributes its strong performance this half year to effective cost-cutting measures and a weaker yen, according to a Reuters article published yesterday.