Olympus recorded an imaging loss of 9.2 billon yen (£53.4m) for the year to 31 March 2014, compared to a 23.1 billon yen loss a year earlier.
The brutal impact of smartphones is also borne out in figures released today. Olympus predicts it will sell just one million compact cameras over the next 12 months – around a third of last year’s target and four million fewer units than in 2012.
Olympus notched up 10.4 billon yen in compact system camera (CSC) sales, though this was 41% down on target.
Olympus says it plans to raise CSC sales by around 40% over the next 12 months – centred on its ‘strategic’ model, the OM-D E-M10.
As well as raising sales volumes, it also hopes to ‘increase average selling prices’ of its OM-D series – to boost earnings – according to a presentation in Tokyo by the firm’s president, Hiroyuki Sasa.
The group’s overall net profits – which include the medical business – stood at 13.6 billon yen.
