>>>>New to this thread, but have seen the commercials. Is this something to invest in or just watch? What is its competition? I see it does more than just the Superdisk, and they have had some FDA problems with their imaging equipment. <<<<<
Hi Scotsman,
Sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner...I have been away on summer vacation.
I'm no expert but please check out these 2 posts which hopefully will address some of your questions:
Some comments on competition:
Message 3924905
Smart Money May 1998 Article "A Treasure in 3M's Trash":
Message 4359804
Also, the information below is from the Q1 conference call:
Last year the company projected a difficult first half '98 in terms of revenue and earnings because of:
1.) Weakness in Europe although Asia was stable and Latin America was solid with strong growth from Brazil and Mexico.
2.) Negative currency translations. There was pricing pressure of 5.5% and 3.5% negative currency translation so reported revenues declined 5.2%. Pricing in U.S. was negative 4.1% and negative 7% internationally. Total Volume grew 3.8% and rate of volume growth accelerated compared to last year. Difficult to predict, but expect currency to remain negative but at a lower level than in the first quarter. EPS of 5 cents would have been more than twice that if not for the impact of currency.
3.) A tough comparison with low end tape backup products this year.
Total revenues declined in the mature businesses that make up product technologies, but Imation achieved solid profit improvement by reducing costs on an ongoing basis. 40% of revenues (and growing) comes from Superdisk, Dryview, customer and professional service and solutions such as digital asset management and medical imaging management offerings. Product technologies now make up less than 60% of total revenues.
Inventories declined and inventory turns improved showing that the supply chain efforts are beginning to pay off.
Significant progress in Superdisk, network and high end data tape, and customer solutions in particular.
Restructuring on track for 35 million in savings in 1998 and in the range of 90 million dollars on an annualized basis.
Total employee population down 300 in the first quarter and tracking to reduce head count by 1700 by the end of the year.
Much of the benefits of restructuring will be felt in the second half of this year
Tax rate was 43% expected to be lower driven by profitability in the U.S.
Investment in I.T. infrastructure totaled 28 million dollars for the quarter.
1,600,000 Superdisk drives shipped into the market in total and about 500,000 last quarter with the vast majority being built-in drives. 40 OEM's now offering Superdisk technology including a dozen Taiwanese manufacturers who provide the bulk of notebooks to the leading PC vendors. Expecting Superdisk to be positive by end of 1998. 10's of millions of dollars in ads planned for second quarter. Aggressively targeting the business users with the very large floppy installed base. PCMCIA Superdisk units expected to grow in the second half 98.
Momentum of Dryview also continues very strong. Dryview continues to set the standard for laser medical images capturing a significant share of the market in both the US and Europe with more than 4,000 imagers (large format) now installed worldwide. The margins on the Dryview film are better than on the hardware.
Target for R&D in the range of 6%-7«% including near-field recording research in an alliance with TeraStor which is on schedule.
isml.toyota-ti.ac.jp
Conclusion:
Q3 and especially Q4 are expected to finally reflect the savings in restructuring and positive returns on the newer growth products and services. BTW, a threat to Superdisk, the Sony HiFD drive, apparently is delayed and there is widespread speculation as to why that is the case. USB Superdisk version for new Macintosh was just announced July 1998.
Hope this helps,
Ron |
