Rokus van Iperen interviewed by Reuters Announces profit-growth target of more than 10 percent Venlo, September 21, 2000 — “We have set a profit-growth target of more than 10 percent, which may or may not include currency effects or acquisitions”, Océ Chairman Rokus van Iperen said in an interview with Reuters. Océ autonomous growth this year is five percent. Mr Van Iperen continued, “We hope we can enhance that autonomous growth next year by launching new products and increasing our activities in growth markets.” In addition to six new printers and scanners, Océ will launch as many as a dozen new software products. ‘There is no reason whatsoever to believe that profit growth will be disappointing”, said Mr. Van Iperen. “I’m clearly more optimistic than at the start of the year, and that optimism hasn’t changed since seeing our earnings for the first half of the year. The restructuring, product development, and investment in growth markets are bearing fruit. “Printing on demand (PoD) is an extremely important market for us. It’s the fastest growing segment, with annual growth of roughly 60 to 70 percent. PoD currently accounts for 10 percent of sales in Production Printing Systems (PPS) and in two years it should account for 25 percent of sales in this strategic business unit.” Océ aims to supplement its PoD assortment, which includes a range of machines that print from 440 to 1,060 pages per minute. Price competition in Document Printing Systems continues, with competition coming primarily from the other players: Xerox, Canon and HP. According to Reuters, this probably explains why Xerox is facing such difficulties. Yet there are differences between Océ and others in this market. While Xerox and Canon derive a major part of their sales from the office market, office systems account for just 50 percent of Océ total sales. In addition, Xerox and Canon are primarily active in the highly competitive low volume segments and Océ in the more-profitable higher volume segments. “The other two professional markets (Production Printing and Wide Format Printing) are stable and provide a basis for growth”, Mr. Van Iperen told Reuters. “By reducing service-cost margins we’re leaving more room to deal with fierce price competition.”