Business Strategy
Delivering value-packed products for customer satisfaction is the highest priority in Suzuki's corporate philosophy, so the company takes a customer-centred approach to every product's development. Another Suzuki hallmark is the pursuit of total improvement in the business and its model range. Suzuki's focus on improvement is reflected in its 2002 "Challenge 25" strategy, which underpins the company's efforts to boost its levels of technology, productivity, cost efficiency, and sales while making itself leaner and better able to meet today's demand for vehicles that offer superior performance, styling, safety, and environmental compatibility at attractive prices.
Suzuki continues to focus its four-wheel business on compact cars, which represent a huge and promising market. In this context, Suzuki is stepping up its product-development efforts in pursuit of higher levels of safety and quality. At the same time, Suzuki is engaged in the development of fuel-cell vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and other next-generation vehicles designed to protect the environment and conserve natural resources. In every sense, therefore, Suzuki's "small cars for a big future" slogan is more relevant than ever to our corporate mission and responsibilities.

Overall Performance
Responding to severe business conditions in the first half of the fiscal year, the company worked to expand its product lineup, to make its products more competitive, and to boost sales in close cooperation with distributors and dealers in Japan and overseas. As a result, consolidated sales increased by 6.4% year-on-year to 871,029 million yen. At the same time, operating profit increased by 18.5% year-on-year to 31,244 million yen, recurring profit increased by 1.4% year-on-year to 27,068 million yen, and net profit increased by 2.3% year-on-year to 11,130 million yen.
Business performance was particularly strong in Europe: Sales increased by 17.0% year-on-year to 159,740 million yen, and operating profit surged (thanks partly to increased sales and partly to changes in the sales makeup) by 325.6% year-on-year to 2,080 million yen.

Automobile Operations
Overall sales in automobile operations increased by 3.4% year-on-year to 658,090 million yen owing largely to contributions made to sales increases in Europe and North America by the newly introduced Liana and Grand Vitara XL-7.

Motorcycle Operations
Overall sales in motorcycle operations increased by 18.1% year-on-year to 185,450 million yen owing partly to strong sales of big bikes such as the GSX-R1000 in Europe and North America. Operating profit increased by 84.5% year-on-year to 12,120 million yen owing to cost reductions and marginal foreign-exchange earnings.

Other Operations
Domestic sales and overseas sales both increased year-on-year, pushing up overall sales by 8.8% year-on-year to 27,470 million yen. Operating profit increased by 109.8% year-on-year to 2,860 million yen.

Full-Term Outlook
The global economic outlook has grown increasingly uncertain, especially since the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001. In response, the company continues to devote all possible energy to increasing product competitiveness, sales, and cost efficiency. The company maintains its original full-term forecasts, i.e., sales of 1,610,000 million yen, recurring profit of 52,000 million yen, and net profit of 21,000 million yen.

Note
The company's forecasts assume a rate of 118 yen to the US dollar and a rate of 105 yen to the euro.