June 28 | Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:48pm EDT
June 28 (Reuters) - Konica Minolta may see April-June operating profit falling almost a quarter to 7.5 billion yen ($93.2 million), hurt by sluggish demand for components of personal computers and digital appliances, the Nikkei business daily reported.
Sales are expected to drop 8 percent to about 180 billion yen on falling revenue in the electronic materials business -- Demand for glass substrates, used in hard disk drives, is sliding with the increased use of tablet devices. Pickup lenses for Blu-ray and DVD devices are also selling less, Nikkei said.
In the mainstay business machine segment, sales of large commercial printers are likely to be flat, though volumes of both color and monochrome equipment was growing in the U.S., Europe and emerging markets, the daily reported.
Sales of new products launched since the start of the year are growing at a double-digit rate, but not enough to offset the impact of the rising yen, which will erode profits by at least 1 billion yen, the Nikkei said. ($1 = 80.430 Japanese Yen) (Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)
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