Word: kodaks
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...Kodak's strategy of playing at both ends of photo technology isn't developing as planned. Last month Big Yellow, blaming a flagging film market on the U.S. economic slump, announced that its first-quarter net earnings were off almost 50% from the prior year. More troubling to Wall Street was that Kodak, citing the soft outlook, backed away from its previous forecasts for the second half of the year. "These are my picture takers that companies are laying off," Carp told analysts. Kodak is adding to the pile too. As part of its streamlining, the company will...
...When the current downturn ends, though, the $14 billion-a-year image maven faces a much more serious threat on the digital horizon. As prices for digital cameras continue to fall, consumers will abandon film in greater numbers. That means Kodak's high-margin film franchise, which brings in about a third of the company's profits, will bear the brunt of the switch. So even though Kodak has lost some market share over the past few years in a brutal price war launched by Japanese rival Fuji, it still captures a commanding 65% of a sunset business...
...this new digital arena, Kodak isn't the yellow monster. It's just one of the pack, which ranges from such tech titans as Sony and Hewlett-Packard to brash online photo start-ups like Shutterfly, Photopoint, Ofoto, Zing and Snapfish (see box). Says Eva Manolis, co-founder of Shutterfly: "We're driving our business by hope of gain rather than fear of loss...
...Kodak has a lot to lose. More than 4 million digital cameras were sold in the U.S. last year, a number that is expected to nearly double in 2001 and outpace the stagnant, traditional camera market within a few years. Consumer appetite for film in the U.S. has almost peaked, at slightly more than 1 billion rolls a year. Indeed, much to the dismay of some amateur enthusiasts (including, perhaps, Paul Simon), Kodak is quietly phasing out much of its trademark Kodachrome line of film...
...make up for that potential lost revenue, Kodak has to persuade people to turn pixels into paper. Last month it rolled out a new digital camera-and-software system, dubbed EasyShare, that is intended to eliminate the hassle and confusion of uploading photos to a PC and the Internet. Meanwhile, the company is busy partnering with hardware makers like Lexmark to offer Kodak-brand printers and scanners for the home, where most digital prints are now made...