Kodak’s long climb away towards financial stability and growth continues with the release of Q1 results. These show a 10% decline in revenues to $249 million ($278 million) with a 2% impact on gross profits of $49 million ($50 million).
Executive chairman and CEO Jim Continenza is pleased saying: “For the first quarter, Kodak continued to build on its strong foundation, generating cash and delivering a gross profit percentage of 20 percent, which reflects our ongoing commitment to improving operational efficiency.
“Sticking to our long term strategic plan, we continue to invest in innovation in our core businesses of print and advanced materials and chemicals. In print, we will showcase exciting new products for both offset and digital print this month at the Drupa trade show in Germany.”
The digital print line up will be headed by the Ultra 520 high speed inkjet press. While the company is celebrating 20 years of what is now the Sonora press, it has not revealed details of any new products in this family.
The Advanced Materials business is a combination of motion picture films, which remain in demand despite digitisation of film making, and a new generation of sensors for industrial and other applications.
Continenza says: “In AM&C, we are committed to our film business and are expanding our manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand for both still and motion picture film. At the same time, we are setting the stage for Kodak as a growth company by investing in a number of AM&C initiatives that leverage our unmatched knowledge of chemicals, layering and coating and vast manufacturing infrastructure.”
In terms of operating profit there was a decline from $9 million to $4 million in the first quarter. Kodak says that “the decrease was primarily driven by lower volumes and higher costs associated with investments in information technology systems and organisational structure to drive further operational efficiencies, partly offset by lower manufacturing costs due to customer focus initiatives, supply chain and workforce optimisation, productivity improvements and other cost savings activities.”
Revenues in the print division fell from £209 million to $182 million with operating profit falling from $6 million to breakeven. Kodak no longer breaks out revenues from plates, inkjet and workflow products.
