The consolidated domestic passenger car sales volume for the 1st quarter of the term ending March 2008 dropped 1.6 thousand units in total on a year-on-year basis. Sales of the Impreza, which had full model change on June 5, was up 1.7 thousand units, but failed to offset a 2.4 thousand unit decrease for the Legacy and a 0.5 thousand unit decrease for the Forester. Minicar sales were up a mere 0.6 thousand units in total, as the sales for the new Stella launched in June of last year increased 5.1 thousand units year on year basis, which was offset by the Pleo down 1.5 thousand units, the R2 down 1.8 thousand units, the R1 down 0.2 thousand units and the Sambar down 0.9 thousand units. Therefore, overall domestic sales dipped 1.0 thousand units on a year-on-year basis.
In overseas markets, we had hard time for the sales in U.S. as the timing was just before the introduction of new models, with the overall sales volume declining by 7.3 thousand units. This figure includes decreases of 2.4 thousand units for the Legacy, 1.3 thousand units for the Impreza, 3.4 thousand units for the Forester and 0.1 thousand units for the Tribeca. In Canada sales edged up 0.9 thousand units thanks to an increase of 0.8 thousand units for the Impreza, one of the most popular compact-size passenger cars, as well as increases of 0.3 thousand units for the Forester and 0.1 thousand units for the Legacy, despite a decrease of 0.1 thousand units for the Tribeca. European sales dropped by 0.4 thousand units with the sales of the Forester falling by 2.6 thousand units despite increases in sales of other models such as 1.0 thousand units for the Legacy, 0.9 thousand units for the Tribeca, 0.1 thousand units for the Impreza and 0.2 thousand units for the Justy. Australian sales were down 1.8 thousand units due to declining sales of all models other than the Tribeca, for which sales were up 0.4 thousand units. In other areas sales were up 5.2 thousand units with the Legacy up 0.5 thousand units, the Impreza up 2.9 thousand units, the Forester up 1.1 thousand units, the Tribeca up 0.6 thousand units as well as an increase of 0.1 thousand units for other models. All this led to an overall decrease of 3.4 thousand units in overseas markets. Together with the drop in domestic sales, total sales were down by 4.4 thousand units