Fingerprint misses the mark – layoffs awaits

The company expects its revenues for the last quarter of 2017 to amount to SEK 615.3 million (EUR 62.9 million), a significant drop from SEK 1,618.7 million (EUR 164.62 million). Fingerprints estimates that the operating profit (EBIT) declines to SEK -40.6 million (EUR -4.15 million), compared to SEK 520.0 million (EUR 53.1 million) during the same quarter the previous year. The company states that revenues have been impacted by a weak market development and a continued negative price development in capacitive sensors. Fingerprint estimates that the Chinese smartphone market has weakened further during the quarter and predicts that the company’s revenues will remain weak during the first quarter of 2018. During the company’s third quarter 2017, Fingerprint stated that it had implemented a number of initiatives to restore growth and improve profitability. To structurally improve profitability Fingerprints has initiated a cost reduction program and as part of this about 185 positions are made redundant. The company is reducing external costs, mostly consultants, but also costs related to own employees. The aggregated initiatives are estimated to result in cost savings of some SEK 360 million during 2018. Restructuring costs are currently estimated to SEK 40 million and will mainly be reported during the first half of 2018.