Olympus Corporation experienced a 69% drop in quarterly profits, due to missing digital camera shipment forecasts and losses in its imaging business. Olympus brought in 1.77 billion yen, or about $14 million, in the three months ending September 30, compared with 5.65 billion yen a year earlier. The company had planned to ship 4.2 million digital cameras in that time frame, but shipped 3.7 million units, including 70,000 digital SLR cameras. The copmany now hopes to ship 8.1 million digital cameras in the full year.
The company has raised its net income forecast 17% to 27 billion yen for the fiscal year ending March 31, and cut its sales target by 9.3% to 970 billion yen. Olympus plans to eliminate 30% of its camera unit's workforce to reduce costs.
