By Kazuyo Sawa - Nov 7, 2011 9:59 AM GMT+0700
Nikon Corp. (7731) rose to a one-week high in Tokyo trading after CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets raised its rating, saying the Thailand floods will have only a short-term effect and the company will benefit from growing camera demand.
The world’s second-biggest maker of professional-grade cameras jumped as much as 3.2 percent to 1,801 yen, the highest intraday level since Oct. 31. The shares traded at 1,776 yen as of the 11 a.m. trading break in Tokyo. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average slid 0.6 percent.
Nikon plans to shift work from its flood-damaged Thai plant starting December, resume partial output at the Ayutthaya factory in January, and restore full production of single-lens reflex cameras and lenses by the end of March, according to a Nov. 4 statement from the Tokyo-based company. Floodwaters have inundated seven industrial estates with 891 factories that employed about 460,000 people, according to the Thai Industrial Estate and Strategic Partners Association.
The Thai floods are only a temporary setback for Nikon, Christian Dinwoodie, a CLSA analyst in Tokyo, wrote in a note to clients on Nov.4, raising his rating on the stock to “buy” from “outperform.” The interchangeable-lens camera market is still on track to grow more than 40 percent in 2011, he said. “We expect Nikon to continue to benefit from this for several more years.”
Canon Inc. is the world’s largest camera maker.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kazuyo Sawa in Tokyo at ksawa3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anand Krishnamoorthy at anandk@bloomberg.net
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