How are results for fiscal 2008?

We worked on increasing sales of leading products and expanding our bases in China, Thailand and the Czech Republic, enabling us to achieve major increases in revenue and income.

Looking back at the automobile market for fiscal 2008, the unclear prospects for the future of the economy, occasioned by factors such as the sharp rise in the price of crude oil and disorder on financial markets, have had the effect of dampening demand in North America and Japan. However, there has been a major increase in demand in emerging nations such as China, India and Russia, as a result of which demand has continued to grow in global terms. On the other hand, severe conditions have continued on the domestic consumer market due to factors such as the fall in the number of new house-building projects getting under way.

Under these conditions, in the field of automotive parts, spurred on by increases in the number of cars being manufactured by our leading clients, AISIN has been attempting to increase sales of our main products such as automatic transmissions and manual transmissions, car navigation systems and power sliding door systems, to expand our system of production and sales in China, and to increase our production capacity in Thailand and the Czech Republic. These efforts have enabled us to achieve sales of 2.5 trillion yen, up by 13.6% on the figure of 2.2 trillion yen achieved last year. As regards Life related business and other business operations, we strove to increase sales of gas heat pump air conditioners (GHP), which are provoking much interest as air conditioners that contribute to energy-saving, and shower toilets, as a result of which we saw sales increase to 111.8 billion yen, up by 12.0% on the figure of 99.7 billion yen recorded last year. Thanks to these efforts, the consolidated sales achieved by our Group reached a figure of 2.7 trillion yen, up by 13.5% on the figure of 2.3 trillion yen achieved last year. These were the best results we have ever achieved and represent the ninth successive year of growth for us.

As regards incomes, although there were increases in depreciation and R&D expenses brought about by prior investment with sights set on future market needs, in addition to an increase in sales and as a consequence of tackling activities aimed at making improvements in costs through the whole range of business activities, consolidated operating income came to 180.4 billion yen, up by 37.7% on the figure of 131.0 billion yen achieved last year, consolidated ordinary income* was 186.3 billion yen, up by 38.7% on the figure of 134.2 billion yen achieved last year, and net income was 91.6 billion yen, up by 37.0% on the figure of 66.8 billion yen achieved last year. All these figures were the highest we have ever recorded. Operating income and ordinary income have been increasing successively for six years and net income consecutively for four years. Our ROE (return on equity) was 12.0%, representing an improvement of 2.7 points on the figure of 9.3% recorded last year.

We intend to work even harder toward improving incomes in the future, but we expect to see a fall in incomes during the next year (the year ending March 2009) under the severe business conditions currently prevailing. However, even under such conditions, we intend to go ahead with prior investment aimed at achieving growth and we believe that it is important for us to create a rock-solid income structure.