Speaking to analysts last week about the company’s Q2 results, where a drop in gross margins from 25% to 19% at its Graphic Communications Group was largely attributable to “start-up costs associated with the commercialisation and placement of Prosper printing systems”, Perez said: “This technology is a very different technology to the one that they [customers] used to have. It requires very different training. The environment has to be different, they have to control the temperature and the cleanness of the space.

“They have applications with very different substrates and media that we didn’t know they were going to use. That created this complex installation process.”

He went on: “It’s unfortunate that we didn’t figure that out before. But we have customers all over the world with different applications.

“The most important thing is that customers who bought one or two units are buying more units, and we have huge demand.” 

Kodak’s overall results fell short of its forecasts. Q2 sales were down 5% at USD$1.485bn ($1.35bn) and losses increased to USD$179m in the period (2010 loss: $167m).

GCG sales rose 4% to USD$685m, although Kodak said this was mainly because of currency differences. Losses at the division jumped from USD$17m to USD$45m, due to the Prosper start-up costs and increased raw material prices.

Perez promised that its new products including Prosper and its consumer inkjet range would come good next year. “We are investing in these growth businesses to create a new profitable, sustainable digital company by 2012,” he said.

This article originally appeared at printweek.com

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