Ricoh May Miss Profit Target as U.S. Sales Decline, Nikkei Says
By Jason Clenfield
April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Ricoh Co. of Japan may miss its pretax profit target for the 12 months ended March 31 this year because of weak sales in the U.S., the Nikkei newspaper said, without citing where it got the information.
The maker of copiers and printers is expected to report pretax profit of 180 billion yen ($1.8 billion) for fiscal 2008, down from an earlier estimate of 192 billion yen, the Nikkei said. Profit was hit by the poor sales of copiers in the U.S. and the yen's rise against the dollar, which lowers the value of repatriated earnings, the paper said.
Ricoh's sales probably missed the company's forecast by 50 billion yen, rising 6 percent to 2.2 trillion yen from a year earlier, according to the paper.
Operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, will probably rise 33 percent to 250 billion yen for the year ending March 31, 2011, Japan's second- biggest office equipment maker said on March 18 as it outlined a three-year business plan. Sales are projected to rise 11 percent to 2.5 trillion yen during the same period, Tokyo-based Ricoh said, without providing a net income figure.
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