Canon has embarked upon a new five-year plan which it hopes will see it return to 2019 profitability levels after posting poor results for 2020.
Compared with 2019, both sales and profit fell last year. Net sales were down by 12.1% to 3 trillion 160.2bn yen. Operating profit fell 36.6% to 110.5bn yen, and net income declined 33.3% to 83.3bn yen.
“Although Covid-19 had a huge impact on our performance, we were able to surpass 110bn yen in full-year operating profit. From a profitability perspective as well, after posting an operating loss in the second quarter, we have steadily raised our operating profit ratio from 2.5% in the third quarter to 8.1% in the fourth quarter, giving us momentum to start this year off,” said Toshizo Tanaka, executive vice-president and CFO.
He added that as Covid-19 vaccines are rolled-out “we expect the gradual global economic recovery to continue. Although there is a possibility that the markets in which we compete will be significantly impacted by Covid-19 in the future, we do not expect economic activity to fall into an extreme contraction like last year.
“This year marks the start of our new five-year plan, under which our goal is to return to profitability at the same level as 2019 in 2021. We will do this by strengthening the profit generating ability of existing businesses and expanding the performance of new ones, which will put us in a good position to take next steps towards getting back to become a high profit generating corporation.
“We expect net sales to grow by 7.6% to 3 trillion 400bn yen, operating profit to grow by 43.4% to 158.5bn yen, and net income to grow by 38% to 115bn yen, which represent growth in both sales and profit for the first time in four years.”
In a statement Tanaka said: “As for commercial printing, our sales decreased in 2020 due to Covid-19, which mainly impacted demand for products used to printing posters and other materials in the graphic arts space.
“Although it is difficult to expect the market to return to a pre-Covid level in 2021, we do expect the market to steadily recover as the shift from offset to digital printing continues.
“In the graphic arts space, which is especially expected to grow, the new products that we launched last year such as our varioPrint iX series, as well as large format printers like the Colorado, have garnered strong support from the market. And, with the outlook of market recovery, we expect these products to drive sales. We will also work to expand sales by further strengthening our product line-up.
“In addition to this, for large-format printers, we will create a tailwind that will support market share gain, enhancing our sales network by adding new dealers that have extensive experience and a broad customer base in graphic arts.”