Nagano, Japan: Seiko Epson Corporation, the leading printer and projector manufacturer, is shifting its global business mode to focus more on industrial, professional and corporate segments, aiming to generate revenue growth of 1% or 10 billion yen (3.2 billion baht) this year.
Usui: Expanding product line-up
Rapid changes in the business environment and worsening financial performance during the past year have prompted the company to realign its existing businesses and develop new business segments.
For fiscal 2012, Epson's net sales fell 3.08% to 850 billion yen from 880 billion yen in fiscal 2011 while operating income for the same period dropped by 13.8% to 21.2 billion yen from 24.6 billion yen. The company reported a net loss of 10 billion yen for fiscal 2012, a fall from a net income 5 billion yen in fiscal 2011. The company's fiscal year starts in April and ends in March.
However, in fiscal 2013 the company reported a 17.5% rise in sales revenue to 1 trillion yen while its operating income stood at 84.9 billion yen and net income at 83.6 billion yen.
The improved financial performance was a result of the company's realignment of its product mix and shifting focus to new information solutions and equipment for industrial, commercial and professional segments. These include the launches of smart printers for the textile, garment and label-making industries as well as photo-printing business and the L-series printers for both business and consumer markets. Also included are smart, finger-touch projectors for business use and other consumer gadgets such as smart glasses and pulse-monitoring and distance-keeping wristwatches.
President Minoru Usui said that the company expects to see sales revenue this year increase by 1% or 10 billion yen.
The company plans to invest 10.3 billion yen this year to expand its new printing product line-up with the use of its “PrecisionCore” technology — a production processing technology that enables it to produce printers efficiently with lower costs and higher capability.
“We plan to increase the printing product line-up significantly this year by doubling the size of existing lines,” Mr Usui said. In fiscal 2013 the company spent 16.4 billion yen on expanding its printing product lines.
This year, he continued, emerging economies such as India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand as well as those in Latin America will be its key markets. These markets have eagerly searched for ways to keep their printing costs low. Hence the company has put its efforts into developing printers that ensure low printing costs and deliver high efficiency to meet their demands. This includes the integration of new “cloud” technology in its equipment.
Mr Usui said the key challenge for the company is to create a product network in new business areas such as smart printing equipment for the textile industry and autonomous dual-arm robots for the manufacturing sector.
“We’ve decided the directions for the company but one of the issues is that we have no experience in many of the new business areas we’re going into,'' he said. ''So we will spend the next two years developing bases in these new ventures.”
For fiscal 2012, Japan contributed 30% of global net sales, followed by Asia and Oceania (25%), the Americas (24%) and Europe (21%).