Eastman Kodak on Wednesday announced a further 10,000 job cuts as the company continues to wrestle with the rapid shift from film to digital cameras.
The company, which helped to popularize photography, has in the past admitted to being caught by surprise by the "breathtaking" speed with which the new generation of cameras has taken hold. The latest cuts are in addition to 15,000 job losses Kodak announced 18 months ago.
Kodak made its latest announcement as it reported losses of US$146 million in the April to June quarter, compared with profits of US$136 million a year ago. The firm's shares fell more than 9 percent, to US$26.03, in early trade on Wall Street.
PHOTO: AP
The company said its traditional film business had deteriorated even more rapidly than anticipated, prompting it to expand the restructuring plan first announced last year.
Kodak said that sales of film-based products, including disposable cameras, fell by 15 percent in the latest quarter. The company now expects sales to drop by between 23 percent and 27 percent in the full year, compared with a 20 percent drop predicted in April.
Antonio Perez, who took over as chief executive last month, said: "Our disappointing start in the first half of this year makes it clear that I need to make some changes, and make them now."
The firm had cut 22,000 jobs worldwide over the previous five years, lowering its workforce from 86,000 in 1998 to 64,000 at the end of 2003.
Kodak is trying to reinvent itself as a digital company and has made US$3 billion of acquisitions in areas such as commercial printing and medical imaging. It stopped selling reloadable film cameras in the US last year, a move that would have been unthinkable a short while ago.
In the second quarter, sales of Kodak's digital products grew by 43 percent to US$1.8 billion, overtaking the firm's traditional business for the first time. Last year the company became the biggest maker of digital cameras in the US -- its most important market -- overtaking Olympus.
Group revenues were 6 percent higher at US$3.7 billion.
Among the latest cuts, 7,000 of the employment losses will be in the manufacturing sector.
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