ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610110040
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
SOURCE: ROCHESTER, N.Y.
Eastman Kodak Co. has lost some more ground in the photofinishing business to Japanese rival Fuji Photo Film Ltd., which will now supply photographic paper to what was once an important Kodak client.
Fuji, which opened its first photographic paper plant in the United States in the spring, said Thursday it has struck a deal to supply color paper to the 550 in-store labs of Ritz Camera Centers Inc.
Ritz is the nation's third-largest minilab chain after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and CPI Corp.'s Fox Photo Inc.
A month after Fuji grabbed Wal-Mart's photofinishing business in July, Kodak struck back by acquiring 51 percent of Fox Photo. Fuji declined to reveal the terms or length of its contract with Ritz, a longtime Kodak customer based in Beltsville, Md.
Competition between the photographic giants has intensified since Fuji opened a $250 million paper plant in Greenwood, S.C., to get around stiff U.S. tariffs. Kodak had claimed in 1993 that Tokyo-based Fuji was selling color photographic paper here more cheaply than abroad.
Shrinking its imports, Fuji's U.S. market share for color paper plunged in 1995 from 20 percent to about 2 percent. But already this year, its share has bounced back to about 18 percent, said analyst Alex Henderson of Prudential Securities in New York.
LENGTH: Short : 35 linesby CNB