Canon Middle East announced results for the first half of 2003, again racking up massive, double-digit revenue growth. With an increase in turnover of 41 percent over the same period last year, these results mark the tenth straight quarter of 35-percent+ growth, unbroken since Canon ME became a full subsidiary in 2001. Canon’s success in the Middle East reflects the leading position it has taken internationally, where the company has bucked a sluggish global economy to notch up 10 percent worldwide growth in net sales.
Particularly strong results come as Canon takes the lead in this region’s burgeoning market for advanced digital technologies.
In enterprise office equipment, Canon has more than doubled its sales in advanced digital Color Laser Copiers (122 percent growth), and shown similar success in digital multifunctionals (68 percent growth). The same success can be found in the consumer space, with a 93 percent increase in digital camera sales.
Other high points include a 56 percent growth in the hotly contested and highly competitive bubble jet printer’s arena. Notable successes geographically include Saudi Arabia (48 percent growth), UAE (49 percent growth), and a huge 97 percent growth in Iran.
“This year has started extraordinarily well for Canon in the Middle East, with record results in many sectors. Despite the intense political turmoil which led many analysts to predict a huge market slowdown, our business did not miss a beat,” said Gordon Jones, president, Canon Middle East.
“We have invested heavily in our channel in this region,” added Jones. “We’ve been conducting extensive training programs for our regional reseller network, and extended our back-end information systems to improve distributor and dealer support, allowing Web-based management of warranties for our Middle East customers. This has brought us closer to our customers, allowing us to provide service more efficiently.”
The highly competitive consumer sector (photo-video, bubble jet printers, scanners, etc) achieved 35 percent growth. Growth in business solutions (copiers, document management, plotters, projectors) has been 56 percent substantially due to corporate customers’ move to digital technologies. Looking forward, the first two months of this quarter have been equally strong with double-digit growth continuing the momentum.
Canon is No. 1 worldwide in copying machines and laser beam printers, and is poised to become No.1 in the home photo-printing market. The company is uniquely positioned to achieve this, as it is one of the only companies to possess world-leading technology for both cameras and photo-quality color printers.
