While reporting excellent figures for its third quarter ended Sept. 30, Shimano said it was expanding production capacity at its factories in Japan and overseas to respond to the growing global demand for its products, as Covid outbreaks have disrupted both manufacturing and logistics everywhere.
Bike dealers’ inventories are still depleted in Europe, the Americas and Oceania, while the demand is leveling out in Asia, said Shimano, commenting on the 30 percent sales increase that its bike components division enjoyed in the quarter, reaching a level of 106.41 billion yen (€810m-$940m). Shimano’s new, redesigned road bike component lines, Dura-Ace and Ultegra, were well received by the market.
Sales grew at a more modest pace of 9 percent to ¥23.97 billion (€180m-$210m) in the company’s fishing tackle division as compared to the year-ago period, which had showed an accelerated recovery in the segment. Shimano said the demand for these products was still very strong and the U.S. and solid elsewhere.
Total revenues went up by 26 percent to ¥130.49 billion €990m-$1,150m) in the quarter. The gross margin improved by 3.0 percentage points to 44.3 percent, while operating expenses increased by only 20 percent. As a result, net income attributable to shareholders rose by 87 percent to ¥30.12 billion (€230m-$272.6m).
The growth in revenues softened in comparison with the first half, due to a tougher comparison with last year’s results. For the first nine months of the year, Shimano reported a 49.6 percent increase in sales to ¥395.2 billion (€2.99bn-$3.48bn), leading to rises of 93.8 percent in operating income and 82.1 percent in net earnings.
Nevertheless, the company boosted its sales outlook for the full financial year to ¥515.0 billion (€3.90bn-$4.53bn) from a previous forecast of ¥500.0 billion, which would compare with last year’s turnover of 378.0 billion. Net income is now poised to hit a level of ¥103.7 billion, up from earlier guidance of ¥93.7 billion and well above the 2020 score of ¥63.5 billion.
