Total revenues were down 2% to 2.1bn ($3.9bn), of which colour, both production and office, made up 513m.

Despite this decline, net income was up to 113m, compared to 47m the previous year. Sales were up 4% in the quarter to 956m, but were offset by lower service, outsourcing, rental and finance income.

"Market demand for new systems and specialised services...resulted in another quarter of earnings that exceeded our expectations," said chairman and chief executive Anne Mulcahy.

Production colour sales were up 17% led by installations of its flagship iGen3 and entry-level DocuColor 5252.

Monochrome production installations were up 13%, which was driven by the light production 2101 and the Nuvera 100/120 copier/ printer. Sales of the DocuTech successor the Nuvera 100/120 Digital Production System, which was launched at Drupa, start later this year. Production revenues overall were up a modest 1% to 610m.

The firm will be "building on strong product line-up with some significant announcements at Graph Expo in October" according to a presentation given to analysts by Mulcahy.

Rumours of a new colour machine, described at the time as "a 6060 on steroids" thought to be the DocuColor 8080 and set for an October launch were revealed at the beginning of this month (PrintWeek, 1 July).

   Xerox's iGen3 digital colour press was one of the winners in this year's GATF awards. Judges for the US technical body singled out the print quality and the inline finishing capabilities. Other digital products to gain a GATF award were XMPie's PersonalEffect software and Encad's NovaJet wide-format printers.