The projection for this fiscal year remains the same as it was when it was forecasted at the beginning of the year, although the operating income for the 1st quarter significantly exceeded last year’s level at 10.8 billion yen.
While North American sales have been increasing in comparison with last year, with no plans for the launch of any new models during this fiscal year as well as escalating prices of crude oil, sales are expected to slow down in the second half of the fiscal year on top of increasing sales costs. Although we had a good start with the launch of the new Stella on the domestic market and will try to maintain this pace, we cannot afford to remain complacent, since sales of passenger cars remain bleak.
We will take advantage of the weak yen against foreign currencies, continue to increase sales volumes in Europe, Australia and Asia and further promote reduction of material costs and overhead costs despite soaring prices of precious and other materials. On top of this we aim to achieve an operating income of 50.0 billion yen, as initially announced in the outlook for this fiscal year.