The Wall Street Journal reported that Lexmark posted a second-quarter profit which more than doubled following the sale of its inkjet business to Funai Electric Co. for $100 million (€75.6 million), with shares increasing five percent at $36.30 (€27.45) after the company exceeded expectations, although margins declined to 38.4 percent from 39.3 percent.
The OEM reported a profit of $88.9 million (€67.2 million), compared to $39.2 million (€29.6 million) a year earlier; with that inkjet business sale accounting for $73.5 million (€55.6 million). Excluding this gain and restructuring costs, earnings were up 95 cents from 89 cents a share. Meanwhile, estimates for the current quarter were in the range of 85 cents to 95 cents a share on a four percent to six percent revenue drop.
The article highlighted Lexmark’s different approach to tackling the issue of a maturing hardware market compared to other OEMs as it “has worked to stick to its core business and add software around it”; and has spent three years “focusing on software that helps companies scan and manage images […] that can’t fit so easily onto an electronic spreadsheet”.
While hardware revenue fell 14 percent compared to last year to $171 million (€129.3 million) and supplies revenue dropped four percent to $608 million (€459.8 million), software and other revenue grew 23 percent to $108 million (€81.7 million).
Canon meanwhile reported a net profit increase of 28.6 percent during 2Q13 compared to the same period in 2012, despite a decline in camera sales, with the benefits of a weaker yen said to have helped the rise.
The OEM’s net profit grew to ¥66.5 billion ($662.9 million/€501.3 million) during the quarter from 2Q12’s ¥51.71 billion ($515.6 million/€390 million), with sale rising 7.5 percent to ¥966.88 billion ($9.6 billion/€7.2 billion) and operating profit reaching ¥98.35 billion ($981 million/€742 million), an increase of 6.2 percent.
The results were above analysts’ expectations, which were ¥59.5 billion ($593.3 million/€448.7 million) net profit, ¥95.94 billion ($956.8 million/€723.6 million) operating profit and ¥949.64 billion ($9.47 billion/€7.1 billion) revenue.
Canon is reportedly expecting the weak yen to increase 2013 sales by around 12 percent of its projected total as it increases the amount of revenue generated outside of Japan, from which around 80 percent of its sales are made.
Despite this, Canon reduced its net profit forecast for the full year to ¥260 billion ($2.6 billion/€1.96 billion) and its operating profit to ¥380 billion ($3.8 billion/€2.87 billion) due to its “expectations for the global economy and foreign-exchange assumptions”.