Review of Last Year
Last year we faced a very challenging business environment as the global economy was hit with a kind of expanding "negative chain reaction." Europe's debt crisis triggered financial instability with economic stagnation in developed countries spreading to emerging markets, resulting in a slowdown in economic growth in all countries. Additionally, we suffered from the historically high valuation of the yen and, from autumn, retrained purchasing in China.
While we weren't able to avoid a drop in financial performance, we worked to enhance our competitiveness, launching more new products in each business segment than we have in past years. As a result, we were able to significantly increase net sales of many businesses on a local currency basis, with copying machine sales growing 1.8% and camera sales growing 8.6%. Sales of interchangeable-lens cameras in particular rose 16.2%. Sales of laser printers, however, declined due to management problems encountered by our OEM partner. As a leading company, in order to cultivate markets, it is our mission to grow at a rate of around two times GDP. On a local currency basis, it is important for us to grow at a rate of around 7 or 8%. Although we are not achieving this now, even if this challenging economic climate should continue, we will work to realize this growth rate.
