Xerox suffered an increase in its pretax loss for the second quarter of the financial year, due to the $132 million charge associated with the donation of the Palo Alto Research Centre to SRI. The pretax loss for the quarter amounted to $89 million compared to loss of $8 million in Q2 last year.
Without this Xerox would have been reporting an improved profit even though sales scarcely moved for the quarter at $1.75 billion ($1.74 billion). Equipment sales amounted to $420 million, up almost 5% led by the mid range segment where sales rose 22%. This is the biggest part of the Xerox business with sales reaching $270 million for the quarter. This is four times the revenue for the entry level desktop products where sales dipped to $63 million ($66 million) and three time the revenue for high end print equipment, covering the likes for iGen, Baltoro and Iridesse. Sales were up by 8% to $82 million ($76 million).
The disposal of Parc has been followed by the sale of the Xerox Research Center of Canada to a private equity business as the company continues to streamline under the leadership of Steve Bandrowczak who became CEO last year. Its debt pile has been reduced by $600 million while costs have been brought under control. The company has increased the use of bots, augmented reality and artificial intelligence technologies. AR and AI have been used to improve the solve rates for calls with what the company says is a “meaningful improvement in customer satisfaction”.
The company believes it is well positioned as these technologies permeate the business world thanks to Xerox’s experience at handling vast amounts of data. It has gained too from hybrid working where Xerox’s cloud printing expertise can help manage a dispersed working environment.
Speaking to financial analysts, Bandrowczak says: “At Xerox, we see the evolving hybrid workplace as an opportunity to improve client’s productivity and employee satisfaction levels with solutions such as secure cloud print for a distributed workforce, automated document and information workflows and streamline multi channel customer communications to name a few.”
