Kodak Case Main Points

Kodak case

-Kodak’s stock prices plummeted 8% from Jan 17-24 due to a rumor that they were having price cuts on film.

-Kodak’s mkt shared had decreased from 76% to 70% over the past five years as competitors like fuji andKonica impressed customers with lower price versions.

-Fuji has about $10 billion per in sales and Kodak has around $20 billion in sales per year.

- Fuji/Polaroid had a 15% sales increase growth rate.

- Kodak has about a 3% sales growth rate.

- Super premium brand Ektar did not sell well for Kodak. It was sold at $3.49 and had a 70% gross margin.

-Kodak advertised very heavily spending $50 million on camera and film supply advertising in us in 1993( 4x fuji adv. Spending.)

-Kodak was going to introduce a brand called Funtime in limited quantities during two off peak selling seasons.

“In 1993 approximately 16 billion color exposures were made- the equivalent of 670 million 24- exposure rolls(Text p.131).””Over the pastfives years, the markets annual unit growth rate averaged only 2%(Text p.131).” The market consisted of four major film producers: Kodak, Fuji of Japan, Afga of Germany, and 3m.

-Consumer reports tested film for all the major brands and found that most of the films in the top six were no better or worse than their competitor. The highest rating was a 95 and the lowest rating was 92. More than half of consumers in the U.S. know very little about film and view it as a commodity. These people tend to base their purchase on price alone.

Options:

Kodak could launch their fun time brand or a similar product as a full time product line as opposed to a special edition produced during two seasons of the year. This would allow Kodak to target the consumers at the economy price level where the majority of film buyers are classified in. I feel this would help increase Kodak’s stock price as their sales volume would likely increase. Kodak is the leader in film in the U.S. market and they have a very good reputation which...