Fall in profit for Xerox

Xerox had the following results in the 4th quarter of 2008:

* Q4 net income $1 million; revenue falls 10%
* Sales of supplies and services down 8%
* Sales to high growth markets retreated

According to Reuters, Xerox barely eked out a profit in the fourth quarter, hurt by a dramatic decline in demand from Russia and other emerging markets, and $349 million in restructuring costs, sending shares down 9 percent.

The lingering sting of higher manufacturing costs, due to the strong Japanese yen, also caused the manufacturer of digital printers and provider of document management services to forecast a first-quarter profit that fell short of analysts' targets.

Xerox saw a startling 14 percent decline in revenue from high-growth regions, after these developing markets delivered 17 percent revenue growth through the first three quarters of 2008. Xerox cited soft currency exchange rates and the rapid weakening of Russian and eastern European economies.

"Where you really saw the weakness was in the developing markets," Cross said. "Some of these areas, whether its Brazil, Argentina or Russia, were really on fire. Multinational companies are going to have a challenge dealing with currency this quarter and going into 2009."

Xerox said fourth-quarter net income was $1 million, or nil per share. That is down from $382 million, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier.

In 2008, Xerox announced a restructuring plan, including about 3,000 job cuts, aimed at saving $200 million in 2009. In the fourth quarter, restructuring charges were 27 cents a share. Revenue fell 10 percent to $4.37 billion. Revenue from sales of supplies and services -- known as "post-sale" revenue -- fell 8 percent to $3.1 billion. Equipment sale revenue declined 15 percent to $1.3 billion, reflecting "weakened economic conditions around the world," Xerox said.

Source: Reuters

Key words: Xerox, profit, 2008, Russia

Rap about how costly inks are!

The Printer Ink Rip Off - Rap Song @ Yahoo! Video

A laser cartridge remanufactured 25 times!

The U.K. magazine The Recycler informed that a local company was able to recycle a laser cartridge for 25 times. The Hewlett Packard mono-laser printer cartridge, owned by The Book Depository located in Gloucester, printed more than a quarter of a million pages. By remanufacturing the cartridge 25 times, The Book Depository has saved £972.50 (EUR1033) at today’s prices, and prevented 27.5 kilos of waste being sent to landfill, where printer cartridges can take 450 years to decompose. It has also saved 64.5kg of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Source: www.therecycler.com

Cartridge costs are on the rise in North America

Almost all of the printer manufacturers increased their prices for printing supplies. According to the web portal Printer.com, there have been several increases registered at the U.S. market lately.

As of September 1, 2008, HP increased the list prices on all Mono and Color LaserJet Print Cartridges by 5%, as well as increasing by approximately 5-6% the list prices on inkjet cartridges and print heads. The company says this was done as part of HP's portfolio management.

As of November 3rd, 2008, Lexmark made an across the board 5% price increase on printer supplies, while Xerox raised the price on selected products from 3% to 6%. But also Brother, Canon, and Oki are increasing printer supplies prices. Oki has said that prices of ink and toner cartridges are going up a flat 5%, but Brother and Canon have not stated a rate of increase yet.

Although consumers will likely not feel a significant impact from this price increase, small and large businesses with tens, or even hundreds, of printers will see a significant rise in their cost of printing.

Printer manufacturers also significantly increased their prices of printer cartridges in Europe in the last few months. New questions are expected in the European Commission in reaction to cartridge price increases.

Source: www.printer.com

Key words: market, prices for supplies, cartridges

How much does HP chief Hurd get paid in 2008?

It is not ethical to count other people’ money, but mass media allows us to have a glance at this forbidden territory.

Under three years of Mark Hurd's leadership, Hewlett-Packard Co. has added more than $30 billion in sales, seen its profit more than triple, and for that "exceptional and sustained" performance Hurd was rewarded with a $34 million pay package in the latest fiscal year.

Hurd joined HP in 2005 to engineer a major turnaround after the rocky reign of former CEO Carly Fiorina, has answered by aggressively cutting costs and positioning the company as a bigger challenger to IBM Corp. through the $13.9 billion acquisition of technology services provider Electronic Data Systems.

At the end of 2005, HP had sales of $86.7 billion and profit of $2.4 billion.

When the company's current round of job cuts is complete — HP is slashing 24,600 positions, nearly 8 percent of its 320,000 workers — Hurd will have cut nearly 40,000 jobs in two big rounds of layoffs since he took the job. Under Hurd's watch, HP has also regained its title of world's biggest personal computer manufacturer from Dell Inc., though Dell has been stealing some of that ground back with a new retail strategy.

Now HP faces hard times as consumers spend much less. Despite it, Hurd was rewarded in 2008 for steering the company to "exceptional and sustained" financial performance in his first three full years on the job.

Hurd pulled down $23.9 million in performance-based cash bonuses in 2008, according to the filing, which was almost twice as much as the $13.3 million in cash bonuses he snagged in 2007.

Hurd, 52, was also rewarded with $7.9 million worth of stock-based compensation during the period, nearly $3 million less than in 2007.

Hurd's compensation package also included more than $738,000 worth of additional compensation for things like: home security ($256,000), personal use of HP's corporate jet ($135,734) and a $71,000 mortgage subsidy Hurd is guaranteed for relocation expenses under his employment agreement.

Hurd's salary of $1.45 million increased only slightly over 2007.

Source: Google.News

Key words: Mark Hurd, HP, salary

Epson continues to enforce its cartridge patents in the USA

After Epson reached its goal of stopping ink cartridges infringing on the company’s patents from entering the U.S. back in October 2007, the company is now determined to enforce its patents all over the country.

Epson informed it would vigorously proceed with enforcement of its patents now that the validity and enforceability of its patents have again been ratified. A second ITC trial was conducted on Jan.14-16, 2009 in Washington D.C. to determine any financial penalties that may be assessed against Ninestar, Mipo America, Ltd. and Cana-Pacific Ribbons Inc. and their affiliates for alleged violations of the General Exclusion Order. The ITC has not yet determined any violations, but has the authority to assess substantial penalties up to $100,000 per day of violations or twice the commercial value of infringing imports.

In addition to the ITC actions, Epson filed U.S. District Court lawsuits in Portland, Ore., for patent infringement damages against the same 24 companies named in the ITC action and numerous additional distributors and retailers alleged to have continued infringements after the ITC Final Determination.

By these Epson shows it is really determined to use its advantage (court decisions) to the full on the territory of the U.S.

Source: www.epson.co.jp

Key words: Epson, court, cartridges, remanufacturing

What do people think about color printing?

Zogby Survey lead a survey about users' opinion on color printing. The stats come below:

-More than half of the 2,100 respondents (53%) said they think printing in color is a luxury.

-More than one third of respondents said the expense (35%) is the main reason they did not print more in color, and four out of five (82%) said they would be somewhat or very likely to print in color if it cost the same as black and white.

-Two in five respondents (39%) did not recognize the ROI value of printing in color – they strongly or somewhat disagreed that they spend time thinking about the places in their documents where color would give them more of a ROI.

-About one-quarter of respondents said they most frequently print presentations/ PowerPoint documents (28%) or those with graphs (25%) in color.

The Reality of Color’s ROI:

-Color helps sell up to 80 percent more. Collateral materials, sales brochures and other consumer communications can help generate more sales with the application of color. (Source: Green, Ronald E., "The Persuasive Properties of Color", Marketing Communications, and Modern Office Procedures, "Grasp Facts Fast with Color”)

-Color increases readers’ attention spans and recall by 82 percent. Safety notices, product guides and marketing collateral are more likely to be read and leave a lasting impression if they’re in color. (Source: White, Jan V., Color for Impact, Strathmoor Press, April, 1997)

Source: Xerox Corp

Key words: color printing, users

HP is celebrating its 40th jubilee of work in the ex-USSR

The U.S. based HP will celebrate its 40th year of working in the USSR and Russia in 2009.

In 1969 the company started shipping its equipment to Soviet scientific centers. In 1980 HP equipment was used for doping control during the Olympic Games in Moscow.

Here is a short overview of what HP brought to the printing industry.

First laser printer: 1984


First mass inkjet printer: 1988


Here are the devices that the company manufactures today:


Source: www.hp40.ru

Key words: HP, printing, shipments of equipment to USSR

Inkjet printer for kids

Have a look at this image. It is a printer. A nail printer.

Mattel, manufacturer of toys and especially Barbie dolls, announced a new inkjet nail printer for kids. The printer is meant for girls, who would create their design on home PCs and then print it on their nails. The name of the printer is Beautronics.

Mattel has not informed how much cartridges will cost and whether they are refillable. It is only known the ink is made of non-allergic and non-irritant components. This toy is meant for +8 year-old kids.

Source: www.printercomparison.com

Key words: interesting, printer for kids

RechargEast reader profile

Source: www.rechargeast.com

Did you already download your free copy of the January'09 issue of the magazine?

Key words: RechargEast, statistics, readers, profile

Lexmark's value falls: a restructuring plan is in place

Lexmark announced that the weakening global economic environment impacted Lexmark’s fourth quarter 2008 operating performance, which will be lower than expected.

The company’s earnings per share for the quarter have been impacted by several factors including:
• The company’s operating income, which was negatively impacted by significant currency rate shifts during the quarter.
• A tax benefit approximately offsetting in EPS the effect of the currency rate shifts.
• Increased restructuring related charges primarily due to the 2009 Restructuring Plan, which the company announced on January 14.

The 2009 Restructuring Plan is expected to impact about 375 positions. Lexmark expects the 2009 Restructuring Plan to be substantially completed by the end of 2009 and currently expects total annualized cost savings of $50 million when completed, with approximately $40 million in savings in 2009.

Source: lexmark.com

Key words: Lexmark, economic crisis, job cuts, restructuring

HP earned $2.8 billion in Russia in 2008

By the end of 2008 the business of HP in Russia grew by 30% and, as analysts said, reached $2.8 billion in value.

In 2007 the revenue of the vendor in the Russian Federation was over $2.2 billion (over 2% of the total revenue of HP at the global scale) and the business growth was 28%, according to CNews Analytics. In 2008 the business growth was over 30% and the total revenue is around $2.8 billion. Still, HP did not reveal the exact amount.

As for 2008, the key growing segments for the U.S. giant were data storage systems, blade-servers, tech services, desktops and laptops. The year of 2008 was also very fruitful in terms of work stations, where the company reached the 45% market share, according to the data of IDC Russia.

The company is also the leader in sales of printing devices - its market share is 44.5%. The total number of shipments of printers and MFPs was around 2.3 million units. The most important growth was observed in the segment of MFPs: MFPs totaled at the 53% growth rate as compared to 2007. "This is the global trend and it's taking place locally, in Russia", said Owen Camp, HP's regional director in Russia.

HP plans to open representative offices in a number of Russian cities, amongst which are Kaliningrad, Sochi and others.

Source: cnews.ru

Key words: HP, news, Russia, printer market

HP 56 cartridge refilling

Hewlett-Packard teams with Staples

HP, the world's largest printer maker, expanded its recycling program by letting customers drop off spent cartridges at Staples Inc.'s 1,500 U.S. stores from November, 2008.

Customers will receive $3 toward Staples' purchases after they return inkjet and toner cartridges, Hewlett-Packard said in a statement. Up until now, cartridges had mainly been returned by mail.

Hewlett-Packard said it has recycled more than 250 million printer cartridges since 1991, and more than 600,000 pounds (about 272,000 kilograms) of shipping materials will be used to return ink cartridges by mail this year. The company will offer recycling at other retailers next year, said Jean Gingras, environmental program manager for the printer unit.

Hewlett-Packard is also doubling the size of its ink cartridge recycling center in Nashville, Tennessee, to more than 80,000 square feet, Gingras said. Hewlett-Packard includes some recycled materials in new products and used more than 5 million pounds of recycled plastics from water bottles and cartridges last year. It plans to double that amount this year.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Key words: HP, Staples, empties

Lexmark to employ 200 in Budapest

The US-based printing and imaging company Lexmark is opening a regional service centre in Budapest. The centre will handle financial, marketing and customer care services for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said Lexmark International Technology Hungaria managing director Emmanuel Jan.

The centre will employ 50 staff at the start, but another 150 hires will be made in the following year and a half.

The opening of the Lexmark competence centre in Hungary was supported by the European Union and ITD Hungary, the Hungarian Investment and Trade Development agency.

Source: hungaria.org

RechargEast's opinion:
Lexmark's interest to the Hungarian capital is probably due to the fact that Lexmark already owns land in Tatabanya, Hungary, where the U.S. company planned to build a printer plant. Until now there is no evidence that the plant is on operation. Still, it seems Lexmark is building a hub for its operations in Eastern and Central Europe in Hungary.

Key words: Lexmark, Hungary, regional center, Eastern Europe

Redeem Plc expands its activity in Turkey

Redeem Plc, the UK-based mobile phone and cartridge recycling company, announced a further expansion drive with the planned opening of operations in Turkey. Redeem Turkey, to be based in Istanbul, will introduce mobile phone recovery and recycling to Turkey for the first time. Targeting mobile network operators, manufacturers, businesses and consumers, the business will provide a new service to Turkish recycling and recovery markets.

The business will be run through a licensed agreement, showing a strong display of confidence and investment in the Redeem offering.

Redeem has already undertaken successful campaigns in Ireland and Italy working with the country’s largest operators. In Italy Redeem already manages successful campaigns with TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) and Motorola and also in Ireland with O2, to offer customers a trade in and discount opportunity for new mobile handsets.

Redeem is also currently looking at ongoing opportunities within the UK market and has further plans for expansion beyond Europe.

Source: www.redeemplc.com

Key words: Redeem Plc, Turkey, phone recycling

RechargEast Magazine, January'09 issue

READ IN THE JANUARY'08 ISSUE:

» Remanufacturing the Samsung ML-2850/2851ND Toner Cartridge
» TOSHIBA MJ-1015 MJ-1016 FINISHERS – LET’S “FINISH” THE COPY/PRINT JOB (part IV )
» Disassembly of Samsung ML1210

» Filling Stations are Not Only About Cars. Polimax 55 from Bulgaria

» Are We going to facechip insufficiency?
» How much does your crisis cost?
» Breakthroughs in inkjet printing

Full page e-version of the magazine is also available here:

Download the JANUARY'09 issue.

Key words: remanufacturing in Eastern Europe, chips, cartridges, toner, inks, compatible cartridges, inkjet, supplies, markets

Oce’s profits tumble to as low as -98 %

Dutch printer maker Oce informed last week its earnings plunged 98 percent in the fourth quarter, as business slowed abruptly in the conditions of the global economic downturn.

Oce, a major maker of printing systems for professional printers, was the first Dutch blue chip company to report quarterly earnings in what is expected to be a grim earnings season. Net profit was EUR700,000, down from EUR36.1 million in the same period IN 2007. Sales were down 4.3 percent to EUR802 million. The company's Chief Executive Rokus van Iperen said the company's business was "severely" affected by fallout from the financial crisis.

To cut costs, Oce will "seek partnerships" and try to outsource more of its sales to third parties, Van Iperen said. Oce will also try to generate extra cash by selling real estate, reducing inventories and payments due from customers.

Source: Google News

Key words: Oce, printers, crisis

Memjet to hit markets in 2009

Memjet was the buzz word in the beginning of 2007, when the Australian Silverbrook announced its newest technology able to produce 60 ppm. The speed of the new printing technology was due to a specially designed print head. Memjet was told to be a breakthrough in the printing industry and it was supposed to hit a couple of markets: home printing, retail and wide scale printing. The Australian company promised to set up a $200 printer by the end of 2008, but as one could see no Memjet was at the market by then.

At the opening of this year, Silverbrook Research presented a prototype of a consumer printer with Memjet inside at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Kim Beswick, Memjet's VP of marketing, said that, despite some delays, printers using Memjet technology would be on the US market later this year, before coming to Australia in early 2010."We've had inkjet and laser for 25 years and Memjet is essentially a new generation of printing," she said. "It's a second per page and there's almost no warm-up time, and it prints that continuously - there's no difference in how fast the first page prints versus the fifth page. "Existing color printers capable of printing a color page every second are large enterprise models costing in excess of $10,000.

Beswick said Memjet allowed printer manufacturers to produce compact home models with similar speeds in the $300-$500 price range, which is higher than promised initially. She also said they were ideal for home users, particularly those who frequently made prints of their digital photos. Silverbrook Research began developing Memjet in 1994 but was only ready to commercialize it in 2006.

The reason why Memjet has not yet hit world markets is probably that the Australian company did not get any agreement with OEMs for mass printer production.

Reference: www.stuff.co.nz

Key words: Memjet, printer market, ink printers

Dell put Ireland to shock: sales of PCs fall causing job cuts

The news put Ireland to shock: Dell announced the company would relocate its computer production from Ireland to Poland. The location of new computer-assembling facility will be the Polish city of Lodz.

The closing of the Dell plant in Ireland is more than just a regular close-up. By operating the plant in the country Dell was one of the largest exporters. Dell’s plant was the trendsetter for further economic growth of Ireland in the 90-ies. It contributed highly to transformation into a new “tiger”. Now that the news is out, over 1900 jobs will be erased and the high-technology image of Ireland will suffer immensely.

Dell is following the world’s decline in demand for PCs. Another computer manufacturer, the Chinese Lenovo, which had surprised the world a couple of years ago by buying the computer division of IBM, announced it would cut 2500 jobs, 11% of its work effectives.

No matter how shocking the news could seem, it did not come as pure surprise to industry experts. Lenovo as well as Dell face strong declines for their products at the global scale. Sales of PCs were greatly affected by the financial crisis. So, their pumped inventories prompt at diminishing production, which can be reached either by job cuts or relocation and passing to services of outsourcing.

According to forecasts of research agencies, IDC in this case, the global demand for PCs will fall by 1.3% in 2009. The decrease will be very significant in North America – 13.7% and Western Europe – 5.8%. The global demand for servers will shrink by 1.6%.

Another factor that made PC manufacturers revise their production plans is the increasing interest to laptops and notebooks. Gartner informs that the Taiwan Acer outstaged HP in sales of small computers in Europe.

Semiconductors suffer as well

Following its main customers, manufacturers of semiconductors do every effort to save in the environment of a worsening economy. Intel recognized its sales plans would not be reached in 2009. Its turnover promises to fall by 23% as compared in 2008.

The Japanese TDK recurred to job cuts – 8000 people were laid off and its four plants were shut down. In 2008 the market of semiconductors shrank by 4% and will shrink by 16% in 2009, says Gartner.

Key words: Lenovo, Dell, job cuts, crisis, semiconductors

Brother presented two new printers compatible with Mac computers

Being one of the exhibitors at the MacWorld Expo, which took place between Jan. 05-09, 2009, Brother presented two new inkjet MFUs compatible with Mac computers. The highlights include the new MFC-990CW, a US$230 color-inkjet multifunction with print, scan and fax capabilities, a cordless handset, and a 4.2-inch touch screen LCD for navigating menus.





Brother MFC-990CW

Another Brother's 11-by-17-inch inkjet MFU was also in the public focus. The MFC-6490CW is packed with features, like a second paper tray, wifi, Ethernet and USB 2.0 connectivity, tabloid sized scanning bed, tabloid sized automatic document feeder, camera card reader that supports most popular formats, and high-yield ink cartridges. Its cost is $300.





Brother MFC-6490CW

Source: PC World

IBM and Ricoh entered into a sales agreement

Last week IBM and Ricoh announced the two companies would start sharing each other's sales network in 2009 and promote their servers and printers together. The alliance will enable them to offer corporate clients International Business Machines Corp's servers and Ricoh's copiers and printers as a, comprehensive office information technology system. Ricoh expects the new business ties with IBM to help boost its sales by 1.10 billion in two to three years.

Ricoh, competing with Canon, Xerox and Konica Minolta in copiers and printers, forecast 2.15 trillion yen in sales for the current business year ending March. IBM and Ricoh will start handling each other's products in their U.S. sales channels in spring 2009, with the cooperation set to expand to other regions including Europe and Asia.

Ricoh bought IBM's digital commercial printer business for $725 million in 2007. Digital commercial printers are used to print big documents such as product manuals and direct mail quickly and in large volumes, and are one of the fastest-growing segments of the office equipment market.

Source: www.reuters.com