Fuji Xerox New Zealand’s two legal entities recorded a 2020 FY profit after tax of $513,000, down from $3.8 million in the previous year, as Covid-19 restrictions saw revenue shrink by almost $27 million to $155.9 million.
Meanwhile in Tokyo, parent company Fuji Xerox has announced a joint venture with US robotics and software company Ripchord, to drive “digital transformation…ridding corporations of reliance on paper records.”
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| "Twenty per cent of print volumes has disappeared because of COVID and is unlikely to be recovered": FXNZ MD Peter Thomas |
“While this year’s profit is lower it is still a solid result, which reflects a significant effort and commitment from our people,” said Fuji Xerox New Zealand managing director Peter Thomas.
“Recognising the continued pressure on print revenue, we are focusing on initiatives to diversify and grow. Acquiring CSG and its IT services company CodeBlue last year was a key part of this, and we’re making good progress to integrate both companies.
“COVID-19 is also driving the need for remote and paperless work, and we have seen increased demand for our solutions that help customers digitalise their operations and drive efficiencies, including accounts payable automation, e-signature solutions, and contract lifecycle management software. We expect to see further growth in these areas in the year ahead.”
In its annual financial statements for the financial year ending 31 March 2020 filed with the New Zealand Companies Office on behalf of Fuji Xerox’s two legal entities (FXNZ and Fuji Xerox Finance), the company notes its combined results featured “a consecutive year of profitability, a recapitalised balance sheet and sustained positive operating cashflow”:
A profit after tax of $513,000 (prior period $3.8 million)
Combined revenue of $155.9 million (prior period $182.7 million)
Return to a net positive equity position of $84.3 million after issuing shares to Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific to recapitalise the companies’ balance sheet
Repayment of all company loans
Continued positive operating cash flow.
Thomas told Reseller News that even after the return to level one lockdown, revenues from print consumption remained down around 20 per cent. "Twenty per cent of print volumes has disappeared because of COVID and is unlikely to be recovered," he said.
The Fuji Xerox NZ financial result for the period ended 31 March 2020 does not include any contribution from CSG, which currently operates to a financial year ending 30 June.
Fuji Xerox Australia last month posted a profit of $5.9 million for the year ended 31 March 2020 despite a six percent fall in revenue to $608m.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, parent company Fuji Xerox Co has announced a joint venture with Ripcord – a robotic digitisation company based in California, US.
FUJIFILM RIPCHORD will provide services that “drive digital transformation in corporations and society, with aims to reach sales of over 30 billion yen by mid-2020s.”
The new company also has plans to expand its business in the Asia Pacific region.
“Fuji Xerox has a well-established know-how of improving businesses’ entire work process through its BPO (business process outsourcing) service,” said a press release. “By combining those skills with Ripcord’s advanced robotics technology and AI (artificial intelligence) which transforms paper records to digital in high speed. FUJIFILM RIPCORD will enable the digitalization of previously unmanageable large quantities of paper reports, vouchers, contracts and other kinds of documents in a reduced amount of time.”
Ripcord’s state of the art Robotics utilize computer vision and high quality sensor technology to elevate the scanning quality; the robotics automatically create image data quickly from large quantities of paper documents that are stored in banks, insurance companies, government, energy-related and other businesses which use large quantities of paper.
According to NelsonHall, the Business Process Services Market in Japan and APAC region is around $75 billion and will continue to grow over the next couple of years.
