BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Order Ultegra gruppos now and you can expect them to land in a little over a year. Not good.
There are thousands of bikes sat in Asian warehouses unable to move because they are missing key parts.
But that’s now. What about the year that caused the shortages? Shimano had a good fiscal 2003.
Shimano Inc said its global 2003 sales rose nearly 7 percent from $1.1bn in fiscal 2002 to about $1.25bn in fiscal 2003 (ending 31st December 2003).
Net income grew by a little over a half from $64.5m to $114.3m, and this on shrinking margins, 34 percent in fiscal 2002 down to 33.6 in fiscal 2003.
Perhaps because of the dearth of parts – and the impact this will have on Shimano’s credibility and on the growth potential of SRAM, Campag, Truvativ, FSA, SunTour, Sunrace and others – Shimano Inc is not predicting massive sales growth in 2004. The Japanese company predicts sales to rise to just $1.3bn although profits are expected to rise to $126m, an increase of nearly 20 percent.
Shimano president Yozo Shimano said: "Brisk order taking by the entire bicycle components operation fuelled higher net sales of the company….[We] will strive to establish the optimum production systems…"
He said production capacity at Shimano’s Czech Republic factory had been increased and that a new factory in Tianjin – Shimano’s second in China – would come on stream in the autumn of this year and would "strengthen our supply systems in China where purchasing power is rising."
2mb PDF:
