Better overall results at Sharp, but printer sales decline.
Sharp has released its consolidated financial results for the second quarter and first half of fiscal year 2019 recording steady profits and recovering from a low in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2018.
For Sharp, net sales in the second quarter were up 1.8 percent year-on-year at ¥605.6 billion ($5.6 billion/ €5 billion) overall, however profit fell in the quarter 12.6 percent year-on-year. For the first half year of fiscal year 2019 Sharp recorded a fall of 0.7 percent year-on-year in net sales, recording ¥1,120.6 billion ($10.3 billion/ €9.3 billion) for the period ended 30 September.
The 8K Ecosystem segment which includes Sharp’s printers, saw sales of ¥311.8 billion ($2.8 billion/ €2.6 billion) for the second quarter and ¥574.4 billion ($5.3 billion/ €4.7 billion) for the first half period, down 8.6 percent year-on-year. Operating profit in this segment was overall down 35.5 percent year-on-year.
Looking forward Sharp states in its presentation “Fiscal 2019 major second-half initiatives” aimed “toward changing the world with 8K + 5G and AIoT”. Initiatives include recover customer demand for device and display businesses, introduce compatible devices for 5G roll out and strengthen businesses in 8K devices and other new products. Also on the initiatives list is to leverage cross-industry partnerships, M&A, and other means (…)” to achieve these goals.
In its forecast, Sharp predicts a second half of total net sales of ¥1,529.4 billion ($14.1 billion/ €12.7 billion) and ¥2,650 billion ($24.5 billion/ €22 billion) for the full year 2019 sales, up 10.4 percent year-on-year.
