Japan Cash Machine Co Ltd (JCM), a technology supplier to the global gaming industry, expects sales in Asia Pacific to continue to grow this year, as markets stabilise, and new casino resorts are launched across the region.
“For the first time since we had supply issues [because of Covid-19], we are now stable, and we have really good inventory capability,” said Ian Payne (pictured), the company’s general manager for Australasia, in comments to GGRAsia.
“We’ve got supply back and it’s a matter of trying to stabilise, which we have done now. So, sales will tend to start to grow over the year, but it will take some time to get back to where we were pre-Covid,” stated Mr Payne.
The firm, also known as JCM Global, reported a net profit of nearly JPY3.28 billion (US$21.1 million) in the 12 months to March 31, on annual net sales that grew by 25.1 percent year-on-year, to JPY31.61 billion.
Sales in the group’s global gaming business rose by 18.5 percent year-on-year in the reporting period, to just under JPY17.28 billion; and segment profit was just above JPY2.79 billion, up 69.8 percent from a year ago
JCM, a firm listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, makes machines that validate banknotes and handle currency, as well as printers for casino gaming machines and other gaming hardware-related devices.
The company had flagged previously a slowdown in sales of bill validator units and printers, “due to a lack of supply of parts and products”. Such problems are now in the past, but there is still an issue of “high levels” of inventory among a number of equipment suppliers, said Mr Payne in an interview in June.
He observed: “The balance in supply and demand, is very out of balance. But the OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] are again producing and new casinos are starting to open, which will help funnel that bulk of supply that they’ve got out the door.”
The executive added it would “probably take six to twelve months to clear the backlog of the big pile that everybody’s sitting on”.
The general manager said some of his company’s products were “back to full steam” in terms of sales. That included the iVIZION bill validator, and the GEN5 printer, the latter said to offer faster print speeds and larger memory for ticket printing and advanced, cross-enterprise promotional “couponing” messages.
“The replacement value that we have is for the UBA bill validator, which is now 15 years old, so it needs to be replaced,” stated Mr Payne.
He added: “We’ve launched the ‘UBA Pro’, which is a direct replacement fit for the UBA family.”
The company says that the UBA Pro delivers a “better performance” for automated transactions across the gaming, kiosk, and retail sectors, while offering a “lower cost of ownership” for its customers. It also offers a “service-friendly modular design” to reduce service and repair downtime, according to JCM.
The firm is also actively promoting its “Fuzion” technology, described as an integrated system that can “link all the peripheral devices and give real time information” to a casino operator. The system can connect to JCM’s iVIZION and UBA Pro bill validators, as well as the GEN5 printer, to “deliver a suite of new features” to operators.
“There’s a lot of interest in this system from casinos because it allows them to see in real time the data and what’s happening on the floor,” observed Mr Payne. “These are the products that the casinos are [generally] targeting at the moment.”
