Olivetti SpA will not be able to maintain the profitability it achieved last year, chief executive Carlo de Benedetti warned in Ivrea yesterday. Key factors in the deteriorating outlook are led by a much lower order level from AT&T – just 40,000 Personalikes this year compared with 210,000 in 1986. Olivetti, which claims to have sold 500,000 Personalikes altogether last year, has also lost Xerox as an OEM customer, but hopes to make up the shortfall by selling many more in Europe this year. The company reckons that it had 13% of the European market at the end of 1986, and says European business is up by 25% this year. The second damper on profits is the cost of turning around ravaged Triumph-Adler, which will lose anything from $16m to $32m this year – but should break even next year. And the third factor is the cost of completely replacing its higher end Linea Uno family of systems.
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