According to a recent article in Business Week Eastman Kodak (ticker: EK) "executives had hoped that emerging markets such as China would give them more time to wind back the film and photographic-paper business as Americans switched to digital cameras. Instead, buyers in new markets skipped over film and went straight to digital." President and CEO Antonio Perez had the following to say during management's Q3 2005 earnings results conference call:
July, sorry, July. We said that we felt that -- then that China had reached the peak of sales in film and has been going down since, and the -- and digital is coming up. But at this point of time, although we are doing well we are number three provider of digital cameras in China and coming up, we are not there yet, and we haven't been able to compensate for that loss. That's basically what it is in China. The analog at this point is going down more than we are growing in digital. We don't have the full portfolio of our digital products in China too either for a variety of reasons, in the -- in DFIS. We will with time, but we don't have them yet. And this is -- we are trying to be practical and prepare the market for those new products, and find the business model and so -- so we are kind of behind in digital in China versus where we are in Europe or in the U.S. And, therefore, because we are behind, we can catch up with the decline overall. Yet, yet. That is yet. Remember the yet.
(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)
EK chart.
