Canon Malaysia sets realistic target

SHAH ALAM: Canon Marketing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd is lowering its sales turnover target to 3% growth this year from 10% last year, given the continued economic slowdown and challenging business environment.
“In the past, we were aiming for much higher growth, but for this year, we would like to aim for more realistic and achievable target,” its president and CEO Wataru Nishioka told SunBiz during an interview.
“It will be very a challenging year, because it seems like it is taking a longer time for Malaysian economy to recover. GDP (gross domestic product) growth ratio is also gradually getting lower,” he added.
For 2016, Nishioka said he expects the company’s sales turnover to increase 3% to RM680 million, with a growth of between 2% and 6% for its printer, copier and high speed industrial printers divisions.
Last year, he said the company recorded a sales turnover of RM660 million, which was 1% less than the year earlier.
“In 2015, it was almost the same as 2014. So this year we only target for a 3% increase,” he noted.
Despite the lower sales turnover target, Nishioka said, the company aims to increase its market share to 51% by the end of this year, from 44%, by improving its camera business.
He said the company aims to bring the division’s growth downtrend to -2% level, which had decreased 12% from 2014 to 2015.
“By stopping the downtrend to -2% level, we believe that we will be able to sell enough DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) units.”
“Even though we are aiming for negative growth (in camera division), it is still a tough target for us because the camera market is shrinking very rapidly right now,” he noted, adding that the company projects to sell about 34,000 units of DSLR this year.
Nishioka said 43% of the company’s revenue is contributed by its printer division, 26% from camera division, 24% from copiers division, while the remaining contribution comes from its large volume printer and large volume high-speed printer products.
On the other hand, he said the continued weakening of ringgit against US dollar will keep forcing the company’s regional headquarters in Singapore to raise its price in US dollar.
“This is because we do business between Singapore and Malaysia in US dollar. So in this kind of circumstances, it is very difficult for us to expect very rapid growth of this industry anymore,” Nishioka said.