A simple bullet point in Eastman Kodak Company’s November 7th Q3 2019 earnings press release brings good news for film shooters everywhere. Kodak’s film business is up 21% year on year in Q3 2019:

“Revenues for the Company’s film business grew 21 percent year-over-year for the year to date.”

Naturally, the “film business” noted here include the motion film stocks like Kodak VISION3 250D and others as well as the still photographic products sold by Kodak Alaris but the message is clear: the resurgence of traditional film products for both still and motion photography is growing and based on these results, it seems to be growing at a faster rate than previously thought.

From the press release.

Kodak Reports First-Quarter 2019 Financial Results bullets
Kodak Reports First-Quarter 2019 Financial Results bullets

It’s important to take this news as just one of the highlights of a single quarter, and appreciate that it’s the first time this year Kodak’s quarterly financial summaries have highlighted its film business in such a manner.

Kodak typically refer to film as one of their core businesses and as discussed by Inside Imaging in Jan 2019, the future of Kodak Alaris’ PPF division (Paper, Photochemical, Film) is less than certain.

Kodak Tower
Kodak Tower

One of the quasi-film related nuggets from the press release is news that Kodak’s relationship with Lucky HuaGuang Graphics Co in the PRC has been finalised. For those unfamiliar with the name, Lucky HuaGuang Graphics is a division of Lucky Group Corporation in Héběi (河北). Current Lucky New SHD 100 black and white film is manufactured by group company China Lucky Film Corporation (乐凯) and sold by Luckyfilm (华感). As with many large conglomerates such as Lucky, these two groups may have little to do with one another on a day to day basis but it’s good to see a continuing, strengthened relationship.

The report includes a US$315M revenue with a US$5M loss (down from a Q1 loss of US$18M) and tells us much of what we already know: Kodak continues its push into print.

Naturally, the initial response from the film photography community has been to suggest the “extra money” can be used to “make more film” and to ask when the medium format version of new EKTACHROME E100 (teased in June by Kodak Alaris) will be on the streets.

I guess we’ll all have to wait for them to get back to us on that. Now, about the 110 and APS I asked for…

~ EM

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5 responses to “Good news: Kodak’s film business grew 21% in Q3 2019”

  1. I do hope that the recently regaining popularity of film will stabilize Kodak Alaris and film business! I look much forward to try my first rolls of Ektachrome 120 film. Should be great for scanning, too. Good occasion for me to plunge in a new adventure of home film development, since my Filmomat desktop automatic lab can run an E6 program, but I never tried to develop slide film by myself before.

  2. This what I said for your article about new Fuji 100 Neopan Across : American are very good on business and they keep alive an historical company of their country, surf on this trend wave, … so very clever.

  3. But, do we really, I mean reaaaallly need APS? or are you saying it to make Gutterman happy?😀😀

    1. Matthew Longstaff Avatar
      Matthew Longstaff

      I think it’s a joke.

 

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