KONICA MINOLTA SALES SURGE BY 30%

Konica Minolta saw sales of its production print systems surge by almost 30 per cent in the first half of the year, as supply chain issues and order backlog receded.

The company’ Professional Print Business, which houses the toner and inkjet print systems used by commercial and label printers, recorded a revenue of ¥119.8bn (A$1.25bn), an increase of 28.2 per cent year-on-year.

The business yielded an operating profit of ¥5bn (A$52m), an increase of 241.6 per cent year-on-year.

It increased the overall sales volume by increasing the sales volumes of colour models, monochrome models, and all models in the half year by 129 per cent, 108 per cent and 122 per cent year-on-year, respectively.

As for the non-hardware revenue, Konica Minolta says the print volume among commercial printing companies is “on a recovery trend”, despite the slower-than-expected recovery in the print volume from in-house printing operations.

In the industrial print unit, the non-hardware revenue surged in all areas of inkjet press, label press, embellishment press, and textile press, driven by the growth in demand of textiles and labels for daily necessities, and the increased ratio of digital printing among printing companies. Sales volume of its B2 sheetfed inkjet press (AccurioJet KM-1) increased in Europe and Japan.