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110. Carson Corporation produces and sells three products. The three products, Alpha, Beta,
and Gamma, are sold in a local market and in a regional market. At the end of the first quarter of
the current year, the following income statement (in thousands of dollars) has been prepared:
Management has expressed special concern with the regional market because of the extremely
poor return on sales. This market was entered a year ago because of excess capacity. It was
originally believed that the return on sales would improve with time, but after a year, no noticeable
improvement can be seen from the results as reported in the above quarterly statement. In
attempting to decide whether to eliminate the regional market, the following information has been
gathered:
All administrative costs and fixed manufacturing costs are common to the three products and the
two markets and are fixed for the period. Remaining marketing costs are fixed for the period and
separable by market. All fixed costs have been arbitrarily allocated to markets.
Required:
(a.) Assuming there are no alternative uses for the Carson Corporation’s present capacity, would
you recommend dropping the regional market? Why or why not?
(b.) Prepare the quarterly income statement showing contribution margins by products. Do not
allocate fixed costs to products.
(c.) It is believed that a new product can be ready for sale next year if the Carson Corporation
decides to go ahead with continued research. The new product can be produced by simply
converting equipment presently used in producing product Gamma. This conversion will increase