Konica Minolta Reports 15% Net Sales Growth for 1Q2014

Konica Minolta (Konica) released a first quarter financial report for its fiscal year 2014, ended March 31, 2014.

The company reported its net sales of the first quarter of the fiscal year 2014 (1Q2014) reached 218.5 billion yen (about US$ 2.2 billion), a 15.4% growth compared to 189.4 billion yen (about US$ 1.9 billion) in the same quarter last year. Operating income increased by 23% to 7.8 billion yen (about US$ 79 million) compared to 6.3 billion yen (about US$ 64 million) in the year-ago period. Net income also gained a great increase to 9.8 billion yen (about US$ 100 million).

According to Konica’s review, sales remained strong for new A3 color multifunctional peripherals (MFPs) in the office field, and sales volumes of these products saw a significantly year-on-year (YOY) growth. Also, Konica said, “Although sales in the monochrome MFP units decreased, sales of new color units drove growth and a solid showing overall. In particular, non-hardware sales were strong due to solid sales of medium- and high-segment color units.”

Yoshiaki Ando, Senior Executive Officer of Konica, explained the reasons for the growth, “The first reason concerns sales growth, particularly as color MFPs for the office in Europe surpassed expectations due to sales efforts. The second reason is on a cost front, whereby the achievement level of cost reductions surpassed expectations.”