Ricoh Expects Net Income to Rise 61% in Three Years (Update1)
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Ricoh Co., Japan's second-largest maker of office equipment, expects to increase its profit 61 percent in three years by selling more color printers and expanding its networking business for corporate customers.
Net income is forecast to rise to 137 billion yen ($1.31 billion) for the year ending March 31, 2008, compared with an estimate of 85 billion for this business year, the company said in a statement released today at a news conference in Tokyo.
Precision equipment makers such as Ricoh and Canon Inc. are benefiting as customers switch to digital color printers from older black and white models. In Japan, where the two companies are based, shipments of copiers and other office equipment are predicted to jump about 10 percent to 4.22 million units this year, the Japan Business Machine and Information System Industries Association said in December.
Ricoh expects sales to gain to 2.3 trillion yen from 1.8 trillion yen, according to its three-year business plan released today. It expects operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, to gain 60 percent to 235 billion yen in the same period.
Shares of Ricoh, which have fallen 11 percent in the past year, extended gain after the announcement at about 9:30 a.m. local time. They rose as much as 1.7 percent to 1,946 yen, and traded at that level as of 9:58 a.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Original Post