Inkjet Wholesale News aims to provide updates on the latest significant occurrences in the field of printing. Whether it’s the launch of a new technology or volatility of market prices, we’ll be here to give you the lowdown on what happened, when it happened, and what it means!
Kodak Reports Profits in Q2; Suggests Prosper Sale on Track
Kodak has released its financial results for the second quarter of the on-going financial year. The financial results reveal that the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) has, in fact, turned around its fortunes. You see, in the same quarter of the last financial year, the company had delivered losses worth $23 million but in the recently concluded quarter of the current fiscal year, the OEM achieved profits to the tune of $8 million. These profits were achieved, despite the fact that the company’s sales showed a drop of about nine percent. The sales in the financial period under discussion stood at $397 million.
On an overall basis, Kodak’s sales figures continued to take a hit in Q2, FY2016-2017. The OEM’s Print Systems Division (PSD) showed a decline of about nine percent in sales which came to rest at $258 million. Sales figures of PSD could’ve been worse had Sonora plate volumes not grown by a significant eight percent. The PSD EBITDA, however, showed a marked increase to rise by 10 percent. The PSD EBITDA for the period was to the tune of $22 million. The OEM’s Enterprise Inkjet Systems Division (EISD) also suffered drop in sales quantifiable at 9.5 percent. The sales figures of EISP, which includes Kodak’s legacy Versamark business, stood at $19 million.
The only Kodak division to show improvement in sales was the Micro 3D Printing & Packaging Division (MPPD). Sales at the MPPD rose to $35 million which was $2 million more than what the division managed in the same quarter of the last fiscal. This increase in sales was due to volume growth of 16 percent year on year of Flexcel plates. Despite the boost in sales, though, unfavourable currency exchange rates dragged the division’s EBITDA to only $2 million, which is half of the same quarter of the last fiscal. Finally, the OEM’s Software & Solutions Division (SSD) suffered heavy drop in sales of 22 percent with final sales figures standing at $21 million. Additionally, the SSD suffered a loss of $2 million. The reasoning given for SSD’s poor performance is interference from the OEM’s commitments in Drupa.
The notable aspect of this recent announcement is not so much the financial results. Instead, it is that the OEM has provided financial results of the Prosper inkjet business separately. This step ties in with the imminent offloading of the Prosper inkjet business by Kodak quite succinctly. Prosper, according to its financial results for the second quarter of the current fiscal, had a turnover of $25 million wherein its losses were worth $7million. The losses, however, aren’t expected to put off potential buyers of the business because they are $1 million lesser than the losses incurred in the same period of the last fiscal.
What is even more impressive is that these losses include the $3 million that the company incurred during the recently concluded Drupa exhibition. Notably, the company’s Chief Executive, Jeff Clarke, while referring to the Prosper sale cited Drupa as proof of “solid demand” for Prosper’s Ultrastream technology. He specified that potential buyers of Prosper got a chance to see the technology in question as well as see the satisfaction levels of the existing customers during the trade show. Clarke also gave hints as to the status of the impending Prosper Sale. As per Clarke, the Prosper sale is on schedule and may be concluded within the next five months. During the same trade show, Kodak received no less than eight letters of intent from separate companies. The letters of intent were for future integration of the Ultrastream technology into existing third party product lines.
A while back, more than a year ago in March, in fact, Kodak surprised everyone from industry insiders to experts that it would be offloading its Prosper inkjet business. It was a huge surprise primarily because Clarke had earlier suggested that Prosper was one of the four, primary, “growth engines” of the OEM. Kodak did explain why the Prosper sale suddenly made sense to the OEM through Phillip Cullimore, the President of the company’s Inkjet Enterprise Systems. Cullimore justified the Prosper sale decision by citing the business’s growth rate of 35 percent in the previous year. Supposedly, Prosper Sale was important for the sake of the business itself considering its great growth rate. In other words, Kodak felt that it couldn’t operate Prosper in the scale that it needed to be operated in for maximum success.
Microsoft & Materialise Collaboration Allows for Cloud Based 3D Printing Solution for Windows 10 Users
3D printing and the 3D printing industry are both growing at a significant rate on a year on year basis. In fact, the industry isn’t only growing but maturing, if all the technological and services centric development are any proof. An example of just such a development is the recent collaboration between Microsoft and Materialise.
The collaboration is intended to make 3D printing much more accessible to the common man than before. Because of the join programme between Microsoft and Materialise, Windows users will gain access to the 3D printing service being provided by i.materialise. This access will be given through a cloud based platform wherein users will have to option to use i.materialise’s on demand 3D printing service by sending their 3D models straight from Windows based applications such as the integrated 3D Builder App.
The entire collaboration will simplify and streamline the pathways between designing and implementing for 3D designers that use apps on the Windows platform. These 3D designers will now be able to simply select the option of 3D printing service in their apps and click the button “order online” to have their designs come to real life. Once the button is clicked, the 3D design is automatically uploaded to i.materialise and processed by the service provider.
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