14 DAY TRIAL // Fiscal years can be strange things, depending on when a company was established and how it chose to keep track of its financial state. For Logitech, fiscal year 2013 ended on March 31.
It is that year that the Swiss peripheral maker took a good look at, combing through sales and expenses and putting together the financial report for the 12-month period.
The figures aren't exactly encouraging. While Logitech didn't really suffer losses that were too huge, they were, nonetheless, losses. Especially in Q4.
More specifically, because its sales dropped 12% in the fourth quarter ($469 million / €360 million versus Q4 FY12 $532 million / €408 million), the loss during the same period was of $37 million / €28 million (versus profit of $24 million / €18 million).
"Regionally, with the exception of EMEA, our retail business has begun to stabilize," said Bracken P. Darrell, Logitech president and chief executive officer.
"In Europe, the combination of the difficult macro-economic environment and the very slow PC market stalled our business in Q4. For the rest of our retail business (Americas and Asia), sales of our mice and keyboards grew 6 percent, much better than the market for PCs, which was down globally nearly 14 percent year over year."
The sales for the full Fiscal Year were $2.1 billion / €1.6 billion, below the $2.3 billion / €1.7 billion in FY 2012, but more than the $2 billion / €1.5 billion predicted for FY 2014.
For those who want to know how sales dropped by region, they dropped 2% in Asia, 2% in the Americas, and 25% in EMEA.
"In closing FY 2013, I believe we have taken appropriate actions to effect a turnaround," said Mr. Darrell.
"We have narrowed our strategic focus; restructured the company, including our LifeSize division; and prioritized our resources to create great new products for tablets. While the PC market continues to weigh upon parts of our business, and the ongoing economic uncertainty in much of Europe shows no signs of improvement, our product portfolio and indications of stabilization in the Americas and Asia, combined with the cost savings resulting from our FY 2013 restructuring initiatives, position us for improved profitability in FY 2014."