Kodak Cuts Desktop Printer Business, Eliminates 200 Jobs
By I-Hsien Sherwood | Sep 29, 2012 01:20 PM EDT
Eastman Kodak, a company once synonymous with photography, announced that it would stop selling consumer inkjet printers and cut 200 jobs.
The cuts come after the company already laid off 2,700 workers earlier this year.
Kodak will continue to sell ink cartridges for its printers that are already in circulation. Expensive ink refills are far more profitable than low-margin hardware like printers.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January of this year and has plans to emerge from bankruptcy in early 2013. Ending the printer business will reduce Kodak's workforce by 23 percent and save it $340 million.
These actions "will substantially advance the transformation of our business to focus on commercial, packaging and functional printing solutions and enterprise services," said Antonio Perez, chief executive officer, in a statement. "As we complete the other key objectives of our restructuring in the weeks ahead, we will be well positioned to emerge successfully in 2013."
The company is already looking to sell its film, digital scanner, and photo kiosk businesses.
After decades of leading the industry on film and camera technology, Kodak was unable to keep up with the emergence of digital photos, film and cameras. It already abandoned its once lucrative digital camera business.
Since 2003, the company has hemorrhaged 47,000 jobs and closed 13 factories. It also closed 130 photo labs, where amateur photographers used to bring tightly-wound rolls of gelatin film to be processed in under an hour.
Earlier this year, Kodak still insisted desktop printing was one of the businesses on which it was building a new foundation. Sales of all desktop printers are slipping as consumers move to paperless devices like the iPad, Amazon Kindle, and ubiquitous smartphones.
Kodak is also looking for ways to reduce the burden of its $1.2 billion in employee retirement liability on its bottom line.
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