Looking at operating income and loss by geographical area, we see that operating income for Japan totaled 1.8 billion yen. The 17.7 billion yen year on year jump is due to a good sales volume and improved mixture as well as reductions in materials, R&D, SG&A and other expenses in spite of suffering from big loss on foreign exchange.
In North America, year-on-year operating income rose 34.0 billion yen to total 32.1 billion yen. This increase is a result of the improved sales volume and mixture both at SOA and our Canadian subsidiary, which enjoyed buoyant sales through the Cash for Clunkers program and the launch of the new Legacy, and reduced material costs at SIA.
Looking at other areas, we saw that declining sales in Europe brought operating income down 1.8 billion yen to total 0.1 billion yen.