Xerox’s revenue slips on printer sales slowdown as it refocuses on services, share price nosedives
Printer and copier maker Xerox has posted a 4.2 per cent fall in quarterly revenue to $4.28bn (£2.96bn) from $4.47bn a year earlier after a strong dollar dragged on already low sales of its hardware.
Profit dropped to $34m, or three cents per share, in the first quarter, from $225m, or 19 cents per share, in the same period of 2015.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a profit of 23 cents per share and revenue of $4.24bn.
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Shares in the company were sent sharply lower at the open, losing 12 per cent by mid morning trading in New York. Shares of the company are already down by around 15 per cent over the last 12 months.
The company is in the midst of a turnaround that will refocus its operations away from its core printer market and last year announced it would split itself in two, with one company for its legacy printer operations and the other its business process outsourcing unit. It's expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Connecticut-based Xerox is looking to grow its services business, which offers business process outsourcing and document outsourcing, due to a slowdown in printer sales for more than four years running.
Revenue from Xerox's document technology division, including printer sales, fell to $1.6bn, down 10 per cent on the first quarter of last year.
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The company has forecast adjusted profit of 24 cents to 26 cents per share for the second quarter.
Lexmark, Xerox's main rival, announced last week it was to be taken private by a group of investors led by China-based Apex Technology Co and PAG Asia Capital in a deal valued at $3.6bn net of cash.