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Years ended March 31, 2008 For the term: Net sales... Operating income... Ordinary profit... Income before adjustment for income taxes... Corporate, inhabitant and enterprise taxes... Deferred taxes... Net income... Per share data (yen): Net income... Dividends... At term s end: Shareholders equity... Total assets... Number of employees... Operating Performance unit: Millions of yen Consolidated Non-Consolidated 87,790 5,404 4,750 4,162 2,250 153 2,062 66.70 36,671 66,103 3,541 60,778 4,299 4,049 3,997 1,654 50 2,394 77.42 33 43,148 66,621 1. Results of Operations (1) Analysis of Financial Performance a. Results of the current fiscal year The fundamental policy of the SATO Group (the Group ) is to make contributions to society by helping customers achieve accuracy, labor savings, and resource conservation through its DCS (Data Collection Systems) and Labeling business model. The Group launched initiatives in the year ending March 2002 to propagate its unique business model of DCS & Labeling worldwide with the goal of growing its sales to 150 billion by the year ending March 2016. The first stage of this initiative was defined to end in the year ending March 2006 and would focus on building infrastructure for business expansion; the second stage, from the year ending March 2007 to 2011, would target for business expansion. The Group is working to widen its operations with the aim of gaining consolidated sales of 100 billion and consolidated operating income of 8 billion (operating margin of 8%) by the year ending March 2011. Under this plan, the Group has executed a number of initiatives to realize its mid- to long-term business goals. In January 2006, the Group acquired a major barcode business from Checkpoint Systems Inc. ( CKP ) in the United States, and, in June of the same year, we purchased an automatic identification business from Walker Datavision Ltd. ( WDV ) in New Zealand. In October of the same year, the Group also set up and incorporated SATO Technology & Business Development Centre AB ( STB ), a business and technology support center, in Sweden. 1,309 This fiscal year witnessed the Group making capital participation in two software companies that had been in a collaborative relationship with SATO in order to meet a growing number of inquiries and demand for systems in Japan. The underlying objective is to strengthen our software development capability to expand our proactive sales efforts based on creative proposals. Overseas, the Group acquired the business of TrakIT, a U.S. company which is active in software development and consulting, also reinforcing our capacity to bring customers attractive solutions in automatic recognition. The year ending March 2008 represents the second year of the second stage, which continues through the year ending March 2011, the first milestone in the roadmap to the year ending March 2016. Thanks to the expansion measures completed from Stage One to Stage Two including these acquisitions we have recorded good growth in sales. The Group reported increased sales revenue of 87,790 million (106.4% of the previous period) on a consolidated basis for this fiscal year. This figure represents the ninth consecutive increase of gross sales and the largest ever recorded in the Group s history. In the domestic market, many large retailers adopted the markdown approach, while demand from manufacturers grew in the areas of process management and parts tracing for the automobile and electric appliance sectors. In addition, sales from each market sector recorded solid growth. As a result, gross sales reached 60,013 million (106.2%) in Japan. Overseas, the Group saw increased sales in the U.S. from major transportation companies and drugstores, though the growth rate suffered in the second half due to that country s slowing economy. In Europe, the corporate organization for Germany and Spain, which had been a challenge, was behind schedule, and this delay consequently affected the performance of the region as a whole. In Asia and Oceania, the market of Japanese manufacturers did very well, resulting in significantly larger sales than last year in Thailand, China, Australia, and New Zealand. Let us now turn to a discussion of our bottom line. The Group decided to take some expenses to upgrade our internal structure in order to strengthen operations in both the sales and administration areas. The Group views these as the requirement for maintaining this momentum of profitable growth and producing synergistic effects globally in preparation for the next leap forward. In Japan, the gross margin declined in the last half of the year due to rising prices of paper supplies for products the Group markets and prices negotiated with large accounts. Currently the Group is working on further cost cutting and transfer of price increases to customers. Sales and administration expenses increased, including outlays for product R&D. Overseas, North America experienced decreases in the orders from large accounts due to the slowing economy and increases in sales and administration costs due to the sales activities catering to quick-service restaurants, or the fast-food sector ( QSR ). In Europe, sales dropped significantly late in the second half in Germany and Spain, where business had been slow to recover, to the level where overhead was not covered. The performance in these two countries did not reach the level of last year, depressing the overall performance of the region. In Asia and Oceania, income was significantly improved thanks to great growth in sales by sales companies and higher productivity at the plants in Malaysia and Vietnam. In summary, these activities produced, on a consolidated basis, gross sales of 87,790 million (106.4% of previous period), operating income of 5,404 million (94.9%), ordinary profit of 4,750 million (86.6%), and net income of 2,062 million (86.3%) for this period. By business segment, the Group reported the following: (a) Mechatronics Products The segment accounted for sales of 36,851 million (104.7%) and operating income of 2,716 million (115.0%). (b) Supply Products The segment accounted for sales of 50,939 million (107.7%) and operating income of 2,687 million (80.6%). 41 42