This Week in Imaging: Document-Imaging Companies Mixed Financial Results

This week we saw a slew of recent financial results from document-imaging companies. In two cases – Sharp and Toshiba Tec – printer and MFP sales were up, but other businesses (displays for Sharp, point-of-sale systems for Toshiba Tec), dragged down results. For Brother, Epson, and Ricoh, results were much better.

Overall, analyzing financial results from document-imaging companies is a bit complicated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s because, for most companies, the pandemic caused office printer and MFP sales and profit to decline due to the pandemic’s effects of lower office attendance and consequently less office printing. It also caused sales and production backlogs due to pandemic shutdowns and logistics challenges, such as shut-down shipping ports.

However, as shutdowns eased, and office printing and shortage have improved, allowing backlogs to be fulfilled, we’ve seen an artificial bump in increased printer and MFP sales. That means comparing recent results to the “bump” can be deceptive, but will normalize as time goes on.

Two other long-term factors will remain however. As Toshiba Tec puts it: “Amid a severe business environment in which the declining printing volume due to a post-COVID-19 work style reforms and office DX (digital transformation) promotion and intensifying competition with peers continue….” In other words, continuing strong competition and lower office print volumes are long-term trends that are likely here to stay.  

This Week in Imaging

Financial News

Konica Minolta Leadership Discusses Financial Results, U.S. Dealer Channel Updates

Ricoh Posts Upbeat Third-Quarter, Good Nine-Month Period

Lower Revenue, Losses for Sharp Amid Display Business Weakness

Improvement for Epson’s Latest Quarter, But Lowers Forecast

Brother Reports Strong Quarter, Nine-Month Results, Maintains Upbeat Forecast

Toshiba Reports Losses, Lowers Forecast

Improvement for Epson’s Latest Quarter, But Lowers Forecast

Office Printers and MFPs

Xerox Refreshes Versalink A4 Printer/MFP Line, Adds Enhancements to Workflow Central, Managed Print Services

Canon Expands Small-Workgroup imageCLASS Family with Two New Models

Other News

Ricoh, Toshiba Tec Complete New Venture, Provide New Details