EFI posts Q1 profits, revenue rise
Foster City, CA-based EFI cited strong US sales as well as continued demand for its Fiery controllers as it reported Q1 income of $8.2m (Q1 2012: $6.2m) on a 7% revenue rise to $171.4m.
26 Apr 2013 | By Rahul Kumar
EFI posts Q1 profits, revenue rise
During a conference call with analysts to discuss the results, EFI CEO Guy Gecht said: "Our strategy continues to work as we target high growth segments where digital print technology brings significant value and we enable our customers to increase their focus, productivity and efficiency."
Gecht also noted the ongoing strength of the company's Vutek GS architecture and added: "We introduced a two meter LED printer, which provides a more attractive entry price points for our LED queuing technology and expands our customer’s addressable market."
Gecht said the company's new Cretaprint [CP3] ceramic tile printer had been very well received and noted the new Vutek HS104 was now in beta testing and on track to be commercialised in the current quarter. "The HS104 is the first product based on this next generation architecture, which enables us to deliver new, unprecedented levels of speed and quality," he said.
Gecht said EFI continues to benefit from good demand for Fiery for the new Canon and Xerox presses, adding that due to early positive buzz surrounding the new Fiery FS100 platform, the company expects Fiery related sales to maintain its 4% year-over-year growth.
EFI CFO Vincent Pilette told analysts: "The industrial inkjet segment generated $80m of revenue, up 7% year-over-year and contributed 47% of total EFI revenue. Demand for industrial digital printers was robust across our portfolio and UV ink volume grew 18% year-over-year giving us confidence that our customers are seeing solid demand."
In terms of regions, Gecht said the US market is very robust but added: "Europe continues to be a struggle. Customers don’t have the same level of confidence and there’s less spending...not just with the equipment, we see it also with the ink volume the growth is not as good as in the US."
Gecht was more upbeat about Asia Pacific, adding: "We feel very good about Asia and particularly in China. Brazil was good, relatively okay, emerging markets we are very pleased with. So, overall, I think the demand – honestly I could not be more pleased with where we are giving the headlines with the demand right now."
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