Domestic Transportation Industry

The operating environment in the domestic transportation industry remains severe, with weak demand plaguing ground and air transportation providers and increased price competition putting pressure on operating margins.       The Yamato Transport Group delivered solid business results in the fiscal year under review as it established a new corporate logistics division to increase competitiveness in the corporate market and streamline operations in all businesses. We also developed a new Internet-based home delivery service.       Total parcels handled by TA-Q-BIN grew 5.5% to 947 million units. Collect Service showed favorable results, with the total number of parcels handled growing 10.1% over the previous fiscal year to 52 million units. We enhanced the system usability of our home moving centers and established more of them, thus growing the number of moving service orders we received. We introduced software that prints out destination address labels in our Kuroneko Mail business, thus boosting the total number of parcels handled by that service and turning in positive business results for the fiscal year. However, changes in freight handling procedure at airports resulting from last year’s terrorist attacks caused a drag on our domestic air cargo business, which underperformed compared to the previous fiscal year. Altogether, operating revenues for our domestic transportation business totaled ¥834,418 million (US$6,273.8 million), an increase of 4.0% over the previous fiscal year.

International Transportation Industry

While overall global economic conditions remain subdued, there were signs of vibrancy in the IT industry in Southeast Asia and some signs of economic recovery in the United States in the second half of the fiscal period. Thus there are some indications that the current worldwide slump has reached bottom. In this environment, we worked to increase revenues from our small parcel business in the United States and to expand our logistics operations in Southeast Asia. However, the total amount of international freight originating in Japan was down from the previous fiscal year, producing a damaging effect on our business results. Operating revenues were ¥61,189 million (US$460.1 million), down 9.4% from the previous fiscal year.

Information Communications Industry

In the information communications industry, there has been growth in services such as Internet data centers (IDCs), which maintain and operate the servers of companies conducting business on the Internet. In this environment, we introduced a comprehensive monitoring system designed to strengthen IDC facilities and enhance their use. At the same time, we have begun developing the new business of offering seminars to educate and support e-business ventures. Primarily due to the transfer of operations of our logistics center, however, operating revenues of our information communications segment were down 5.1% from the previous fiscal year to ¥18,431 million (US$138.6 million).

Other Industry

Sales of books in marketing operations were strong due to a significant increase of orders placed through the Internet. Our leasing business focused on carriage lease activity and showed good results. These, together with firm performance in our packaging operations, led to a 3.6% growth in operating revenues in other business to ¥18,082 million (US$136.0 million).