Fujitsu to sell scanner business to Ricoh for $625m 

RIYADH: Japanese IT services company Fujitsu is selling its scanner business to office equipment maker Ricoh for 80 billion yen ($625 million), as it shifts its focus to software development, Nikkei Asia reported. 

Fujitsu will sell an 80 percent stake in its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ishikawa-based PFU, a major business scanner manufacturer.

Ricoh plans to build a service combining office equipment and image data processing by incorporating PFU’s products.

The two companies aim to make a formal decision on the deal by the end of the month.

They will also consider collaborating on the digitization of office processes.

The office equipment market continues to shrink due to companies going paperless, according to Nikkei Asia. 

Global shipments of copy machines and multifunction printers came to 649.1 billion yen last year, down about 30 percent from five years earlier, according to the Japan Business Machine and Information System Industries Association.