14 DAY TRIAL // The third quarter of fiscal year 2014 has just ended, and almost all major players on the digital camera market have published their financial results for this period.
Among them, Olympus shows signs of recovery and registered a significant decrease in operating loss, from -4.3 billion yen / -$42 million / -€31 million to -1.7 billion yen / -$16.6 million / -€12.2 million, thanks to the increased sales figures registered by the high-end OM-D E-M1 model, which caused the overall mirrorless camera sales to grow 19% compared with same period of the previous fiscal year.
Although yen deprecation has increased overall expenses, thanks to the cost reduction measures applied, SG&A expenses were lower than in the previous year. Moreover, the compact camera inventory is now down to 70% from the end of the previous fiscal year until now, with older model inventories down more than 90%.
According to the presentation material, the company didn't manage to achieve the Net Sales forecast planned for Q3 if FY2014, mostly due to the lower than expected sales volumes of the PEN series, although the OM-D series have registered strong sales.
On the other hand, Operating Income target has been met, thanks to the increased cost reduction measures as well as the increased percentage of sales for high-end OM-D products that contributed to lowering the overall cost of sales and increasing gross profit.
For the last quarter of FY2014, Olympus plans to further strengthen the OM-D series as well as its lens business in order to improve gross profit and overall business profitability. Another measure planned for Q4 is the expansion of sales for European and US markets by further promoting the newly released entry-level OM-D E-M10 mirrorless camera.
The latest reports have also placed Olympus on the first spot in Japan when it comes to mirrorless digital camera sales and, despite analyst prognostics, it seems that the company is slowly regaining its strength.