After doing their usual last minute "loud whisper" update earlier in the week, Nikon today announced their financial results for the first half of their fiscal year (ended 9/30/2009). Sales and income came in above forecast, though they still showed a loss for the period (compared to a profit the previous year).
Overall sales were 192.9b yen for the quarter, with net income of -13.7b yen. The Precision Equipment division has been writing down inventory and consolidating plants, which had a big impact on the final numbers, but Precision's real issue is simple: it sold 34 steppers in the first half of this year versus 69 last year. Currency exchange also continued to be an issue for the company overall, with the dollar/yen exchange falling lower than expected and the euro/yen exchange coming in higher than expected.
The Imaging division did better than forecast, in basically all aspects. It sold 275.3b yen of equipment for the first half, and made a 26.5b yen profit. 1.66m DSLRs, 2.45m lenses, and 5.13m Coolpix cameras were sold in the first half of their fiscal year. All those numbers are up from Nikon's last forecast, which was in early August. Moreover, unit volume in interchangeable lenses and Coolpix cameras hit a new high for the first half. Unfortunately, sales dollars per unit is dropping. In terms of sales, Imaging now represents 72% of Nikon's business.
As always at the half year mark, Nikon updated their full year forecast. This will sound like deja vu: Precision continuing to struggle and lose money, Imaging making a small profit on slightly declining sales. Some numbers were intriguing: DSLR unit sales of 3.55m (on a market size of 10m, so a 35% market share). This reflects an increase of 14% more DSLRs sold in the second half of the year (the part we're in now) than the first half. Lens sales are now estimated at 5.15m for the year (and second half estimates are up 10% over first half). Finally, Nikon expects to sell a remarkable 6.37m Coolpix cameras in the second half (remember, they sold 5.13m in the first). That's a 24% increase.