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Canon loses revenue in ’13, staff in ’14

Canon Australia will sack almost 10 percent of its Australian staff following a dramatic downturn in profit (before income tax) in its 2013 financial year from $38.6 million (2012) to just $4.1 million.

Canon Australia managing director, Taz Nakamasu.
Canon Australia managing director, Taz Nakamasu.

The story of the sackings was broken by Nic White on trusted print industry website, ProPrint, and confirmed by a Canon spokeswoman.

Canon will outsource some of the roles covered by approximately 100 staff in ‘administration and back-office support jobs’ to business process management firms Genpact and Convergys, and is reported as saying the restructure will ‘streamline its office operations to increase efficiencies and better serve its customers’.

It’s also reported the cuts will be mainly from the head office in North Ryde. Canon has 980 Australian staff, according to the ProPrint report.

Financial woes
Canon Australia files financial figures with ASIC for both Canon Australia and the consolidated group of Canon companies which includes: Canon NZ; Canon Finance Australia; Canon Finance NZ; Oce; Oce Finance; and Lamberts Business Systems.

The consolidated group had a bottom line (net profit after tax) result of $7.5 million on total revenue of $756,451 million. This was a profit increase on the 2012 result. Canon Australia (with which most businesses in the photographic sector deal) had a net profit of $3.6 million after paying $561K in income tax.

Revenue for Canon Australia was down from $722 million in 2012 to $670 million in 2013, the $52 million drop perhaps partially a reflection of the collapse of the digital compact market, in which Canon enjoyed a massive market share. A closer look at the figures, however, shows that revenue from Sale of Goods dropped less than $20 million – or a little more than 3 percent. Given 2013 was a dreadful year for camera sales, this is a fairly good result.

However ‘Other Revenue’ – revenue outside sales of goods and services  – dropped from $55 million in 2012 to just $23 million in 2013. In this ‘Other Revenue’ line, there is a drop of around $30 million in ‘Dividend Income’ – from $44.4 million in 2012 down to 15.5 million in 2013. The report doesn’t elaborate on who is contributing this Dividend Income – perhaps Canon Japan?

‘Cost of Sales’ – which relates closely to what Canon Australia pays Canon Japan for the goods it sells – dropped from $480 million in 2012 to $462 million in 2013.

Canon_2013_FinancialStateme

 

 

 

11 Comments

  1. John Streeter John Streeter May 22, 2014

    Canon Australian bought Australia’s largest rental studio a month ago. They bought Sun Studios, which has also been struggling the last few years Is this a new direction for Canon doing studio and equipment rentals.?

  2. Rick Rick May 23, 2014

    If Canon would come out with an affordable ($2500 or less) EF mount video camera their sales would skyrocket. Something similar to the EOS C100. They have been holding out for too long and their greed is biting them back.

  3. Nashy Nashy May 23, 2014

    Canon why do you think the following is so? Could it be the pathetic way you deal with your customers? The lies that you tell about faulty products? The wasted money you spend on defending the indefensible – sending paralegals to protect the reputation of the Flagship 1DX when the rest of the world already knows what a Lemon it is and continues to be? Could it be because you claim that your Technical Experts are just that ‘Technical Experts’ yet you provide false qualifications and later admit to them having ONLY one day of “In House Training” before letting them loose pulling apart your most advanced camera before sending it back to customers covered in more oil than the Exxon Valdez? Oh and falsifying their qualification certificate by listing a training organization that was De-registered many years before the alleged training… Could it be because you provide photographic evidence to the CTTT of products that aren’t even the customer’s that had taken you to the CTTT resulting in you having to do an immediate and extremely embarrassing back-flip in front of the Tribunal Member? Maybe However this could really work in Canon’s favor – IF???? Canon sacks the dead weight that have caused the enormous backlash against your brand and replace them with an administration that realizes that without customers you will ALL be lining up at Center Link… Please feel free to Share…

    • Doug Doug May 23, 2014

      Nashy must be having a bad day. The Canon 1DX is a lemon? Really.

      Hey Canon. I love my 5D Mark lll. Hang in there!

  4. Alex Alex May 26, 2014

    Could this possibly have anything to do with the fact that Canon America offers stupidly ridiculous rebates to customers, making it way cheaper for me to buy myself gear from the states, rather than here in Australia?

    Real-World Example:
    I just bought the Pixma Pro 100 for $250, including delivery, from the states. Brand new. OK, I have no warranty, but it’s a quarter of the price! This was possible because the person I got it from had received it as a bonus, when they bought a mid-line DSLR!

    I am yet to buy anything new from Canon within Australia! I can’t afford to. All of my new Canon purchases have been grey imports, with warranties covered here through a $29 warranty program add-on. I’m still miles ahead in savings.

    Maybe if we in Australia were lavished with the same ludicrous deals and offers that our United States brethren were flaunted with, the profits here might be a different story!

  5. Peter Peter June 15, 2014

    Canon Australia has notorious reputation ( same as Canon Canada) selling Canon product waaaaaaaaay above other countries. I am one of the unfortunate citizen lives in this place. We pay A LOT on consumer goods than any other country but we don’t make more. Go figure Canon Australia and Canada. Why we stopped buying goods from you. I just opted not to buy any. Period.

    • Keith Shipton Keith Shipton Post author | June 15, 2014

      Thanks for the comment from across the ocean, Peter. There are a few retailers here who have adopted that strategy – but not enough to dissuade Canon from a full-scale assault on their specialist customers’ channel via online store and consumer email address harvesting. So here Canon’s approach seems to be to limit supply to a few specialist retailers, and thus drive a wedge between the ‘have’ and ‘have nots’. Then operate surveillance on the ‘priveleged’ retailers to make sure that there’s no funny business at the sales counter like recommending other brands. Hell of a way to handle your customers, but looks to be working.

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