[gazonk]

Excerpts from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hoya-announces-third-quarter-financi...14923154.html:

"Net sales were up 1.5% to 108,449 million yen year-on-year, and operating income rose 4.7% to 19,897 million yen. Net income was up 12.0% to 13,210 million yen, and earnings per share were 30.62 yen compared with 27.24 yen in the same period last year."
"The profit of the camera business also exceeded our expectations this quarter due to the channel consolidation and focused promotion of new SLR cameras; K-5 and K-r."

Amateur Photographer reports:

"Hiroshi Hamada, Hoya's chief operating officer, said: 'The profit of the camera business exceeded our expectations this quarter due to increased channel consolidation and focused promotion of new SLR cameras; K-5 and K-r.' "

"Hoya said its lens factories were running at 'full production capacity', as a result of 'robust' digital camera sales compared to a year earlier 'particularly in emerging countries'. "

[elho_cid]

But there was no K-r or K-5 in the third quarter...

[bobmaxja]

Their 3er quarter end on December 31 st .

[jeffshaddix]

Excellent! Glad they're doing well!

[NaClH2O]

Pentax is dying! Don't ya know? It's just terrible that the profits are up 12%!

NaCl(of course it has been dying since before I bought my DS back in 05)H2O

[elho_cid]

I wonder what do they mean by emerging countries... I haven't heard about any new country emerging last year.

[mikemike]

I wonder what do they mean by emerging countries... I haven't heard about any new country emerging last year.

Photojournalists in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Sudan...

I think they are probably talking about China, India, Brazil, and the rest of southeast asia.

Good for Hoya. It is definitely difficult for any Japanese company given the strength of the yen.

[ukwoody]

Can only be good news!
woody

[glanglois]

Note of caution: The 12% number is Hoya as a corporation. I didn't see anything in the announcement that suggested what Pentax gross margins, operating profit, net profit, percentage increases, etc. might have been. I would assume that these are confidential in any case.

He simply noted that Pentax profits (!!) exceeded their internal targets. However modest those targets were.

I'm not being negative - I'm very pleased that the the Pentax staff are meeting the parent's goals. It makes keeping one's job so much easier ....

[spartan]

Rice High will find a way to turn this into a bad news story....

[paperbag846]

Fantastic news! Particularly that their lens production is running at full capacity - I think the chance of new lenses is high, and discontinuation low.

I would really love them to put the FA 50 1.4, A 24 2.8, or A 85 1.4 in a DA shell w/ quickshift. Or a DA L 50mm 1.7 would be nice. One can dream, no?

[gazonk]

Fantastic news! Particularly that their lens production is running at full capacity - I think the chance of new lenses is high, and discontinuation low.

I noted that as well, very positive. I wonder if some of the production lines are already reserved for mirrorless system lenses?

[Mike.P®]

I wonder how much the staining problem will affect the next quarters profits.

[Christopher M.W.T]

I wonder how much the staining problem will affect the next quarters profits.

It won't, because those that pay religious amount of attention are generally the ones who are obsessed with measurbation instead of taking photos.

[Cannikin]

It won't

It will, because no matter how you look at it, the replacement process for the stained K-5s will at the very least cost them millions (even tens of millions) of dollars in servicing, diverted manufacturing and shipping costs alone (not to mention potential losses in market value by the time refurbished cameras make it back to market). For a relatively small subsidiary like Pentax, that can cause a significant bite into their profits.

For Hoya as a whole, though, it's probably not too big a deal.