More top-tier customers are making Xerox Corporation their chosen technology and services partner. Revenue and market share are increasing in Xerox`s targeted growth areas. Combine those key metrics with continued cost discipline, excellent cash flow and declining debt, and "everywhere we look, the results are positive", said Anne M Mulcahy, Xerox chairman and chief executive officer.
"Our business model has been tested, and it is producing consistently predictable and improving results."
Xerox earned $360 million on more than $15.7 billion in revenue in 2003, while generating $1.9 billion in operating cash flow and reducing debt by $3 billion. At the same time, the company has continued to invest in key market segments - digital office, digital production, colour and services - and "these investments are paying off". More than half of Xerox`s revenue last year - and 55% in the first quarter of this year - came from offerings that were introduced in the past two years.
Rob Abraham, Managing Director of Bytes Document Solutions - exclusive distributor of Xerox products in 25 African countries - affirmed Mulcahy`s statement.
"Contrary to industry trends, we have noticed a remarkable increase in business over the past three years. Business is doing extremely well throughout Africa and SA, especially at the big end of the product range of production systems."
He remarked that the success is partly due the lowering of product prices over the last three years and that in turn has led to certain product segmentations and consolidation of printers.
He continued: "The trend for companies to have multiple printers has been substituted by multifunctional devices. Even though corporations are now buying fewer printers, more multifunctional devices have been sold.
The company now also provides for the lower end or entry-level market. To meet demand, Xerox has improved its entry-level product that earlier didn`t exist or where it did not compete in the market previously.
Mulcahy continued: "In addition, new technology is helping to drive share gains in key markets. For example, last year the company gained two points of share in the US in colour digital copiers and multifunction devices and gained one share point in black-and-white. In Europe, Xerox is number one in office colour copiers and multifunctional devices with 34% share of the market."
Xerox remains the number one provider of digital production printing and publishing systems in both colour and black-and-white, in the US and Europe. According to full-year 2003 market share data, Xerox holds a 51% share of the production colour market in the US.
"We are driving the `New Business of Printing`," Mulcahy said. "Increasingly, our commercial print customers are relying on the Xerox DocuColor iGen3 Digital Production Press to fuel their business growth.
"We have a clear, achievable growth strategy, one that is delivering the results you deserve," Mulcahy concluded. "None of us at Xerox wants to be `good enough`. We are on the road whose destination is nothing short of greatness."
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