For the October-December quarter of fiscal 2012, Olympus recorded a net loss of 391 million yen (US$4.3 M) against a 756 million yen loss of the previous year.
The balance sheet displayed improvement on a weaker yen, but sales continued to be weighed down by sliding sales of digital cameras. Operating profit dropped 22% to 6.57 billion yen (US$73 M), while revenue fell 26% to 155 billion yen (US$1.7 B). Performance for the first nine months: Sales 561.2 billion yen (US$6.2 B), down 10.2%, operating profit 24.6 billion yen (US$273.3 M), a 5.2% fall and net profit 7.6 billion yen (US$84.4 M). The Imaging product segment dropped 17.1% to 86.9 billion yen(US$965.6M), with an operating loss of 8.7 billion yen (US$96.7 M). Sales of lens interchangeable models were favourable, but compact models, which account for nearly 90% of D-cam sales, suffered from falling sales in both unit and value, due to severer price competition. For the fiscal year forecast ending March 2013, the company lowered its net profit outlook to 6 billion yen from 8 billion yen, citing continued weakness in digital camera business. Sales are expected to stay at 740 billion yen, and operation profit at 35 billion yen.