Ricoh India’s Manoj Kumar
Rise in income due to “foray into production, printing, IT services and laser printers”.
Moneycontrol.com reports that Ricoh India saw a 48 percent increase in income for the final quarter of the financial year, with the company posting a full-year turnover of Rs 633 crore ($108.8 million/€82.3 million).
Manoj Kumar, Senior Vice-President and CFO of Ricoh India, attributed the rise to the company’s new business units – production, printing, IT services and laser printers, which were introduced three years ago; as well as its existing core business unit dealing with traditional products, which he said accounted for 61 percent of the year’s revenue and continues to grow “handsomely”. Some “very high value deals” picked up by Ricoh India last year also helped contribute to the rise in income.
Kumar added that, although “it is very difficult to say how things will shape up in the future because the market is very unpredictable”, the company is “poised to achieve that kind of growth” again for the next financial year, with the company targeting Rs 1000 crore ($171 million/€130 million).
In terms of the Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA) margins, Kumar said that despite reporting “losses in the first three quarters of the last year, in Q4 we managed not only to wipe out all those accumulated losses but even posted profit”.
He added that “as far as margin EBITDA is concerned, we are a very heavily import-dependent company”, noting that the recent depreciation of the Indian rupee “has been the major factor why our profits came down last year, and because of which our margins were under pressure consistently”. However, he said that Ricoh India is “putting our best foot forward to be able to tide over this crisis and still deliver the kind of margins that our shareholders are looking for”. Furthermore, the company’s IT services unit is not dependent on exports and so is unaffected by the rupee’s depreciation “so that also is helping us to deliver the kind of margins that we have reported”.