A Happy New Year to everybody of Fujitsu General Group in the world!
I am delighted to send you a message at the beginning of the New Year
Etsuro Sato
First, looking back to the world economy in 2015, although the U.S. economy which was
said to be the sole winner progressed steadily, the overall growth rate was less than the
previous year as the low price trend of crude oil and resources continued due to the
economic slowdown in China and Asian emerging countries. Besides, two big items of
news came in at the end of last year. One is that the United States decided to raise the
interest rate and the zero interest -rate policy was lifted for the first time in 7 years. At
the moment, other countries watch calmly the situation by but we need to carefully
watch the influence on the real economy and market conditions including the further
slowdown of the economy in the emerging countries and the impact to the exchange
trend.
Another news is that the “Paris Agreement” was adopted in the COP21 aiming at the
prevention of the global warming. This time, a new framework that 196 countries
including the countries exhausting a lot of CO2 such as the United States, China, India
set a voluntary target and tackle its achievement was agreed , which marked a
significant turning point for the first time in 18 years since the Kyoto Protocol.
Naturally, it is the issue to which we cannot afford to be indifferent. In the future, the
regulations for energy saving and refrigerants will be accelerated and diversified, which
will be, on the other hand, a good opportunity for the companies capable to adapt
themselves to the regulations strengthed new dimension.
Under such circumstances, our company was able to post the record high sales and
income in the first half of FY2015 due to the progress of the cost reduction in addition to
the effect of increased income by the sales expansion of overseas air conditioners and
telecommunication systems. Especially, the sales of air conditioners in the Middle East
has substantially grown owing to the united efforts of engineering division and sales
division to take the measures for the environmental regulations enforced in the Middle
East in a very short time of schedule prior to competitors, which is a good example of
turning crisis into opportunity.
Also, in Europe, the situations were unstable for a while due to the revival of Greece
crisis but in South Europe and some other European countries, the market sales of air conditioners went on favorably blessed with good weather, and now, the good progress of
sales is expected toward the second half of the fiscal year.
However, there still remain some problems. We are still halfway regarding the
strengthening of the support for the stores in the domestic mass sales channel and the
sales expansion of overseas large system products. Furthermore, the pillar of the future
business in the information & communication systems division and in the electronic
devices division for reestablishment of the business toward the future is still under
study.
With regard to the “Strengthening of development power of air conditioners” which will
be the engine of our future growth, we are taking measures in the hardware aspect such
as starting the construction of the new R&D Center in Thailand but it is the reality of
our company in 2015 that we are lagging in the measures in the software aspect
envisaging the medium-and-long term such as the establishment of organizational
system, human resources development.
The business outlook of the second half of this fiscal year at this time is that we will be
able to achieve the budget and publicly announced forecast of the income due to the
favorable trend of exchange rate and material cost, though we have the problems of the
poor sales of electronics retail stores in Japan, and of revising down sales forecast in
overseas air conditioner and electronic devises I would like to ask each division to
accomplish the current plan completely for the remaining three months of this fiscal
year,and to lead to the next fiscal year.
In the meantime, our competitors are envisaging the future of air conditioner market as
growing business area and focusing on the strengthening of the business foundation
such as the expansion of product lineup and sales channel and creation of innovative
technologies through acquisition, business tie-up or establishment of joint venture and
reinforcement of research facility. Thus, the environment of competition is drastically
changing.
To such a change of business environment, we must push forward the innovation.
Otherwise, we will be left behind the competition. Looking at the move of the
competitors, we need to humbly realize the present situations of our company that “we
lag in the measures for the change of market”.
Since last year, we have had the meetings with various divisions on the medium term
Plan and discussed the future business