Presentation Transcripts

Yesterday, a decision was made in the Senior Executive Officer Council to make a new investment of 16.3 billion yen in the LED backlight business. We planned 2.3 billion yen in the original forecast, but this was raised to 5 billion yen in July, and 16.3 billion yen this time.
Considering the reasons for success in the LED backlight business, the first is Minebea's technology for making LED backlights slimmer, the second is the acceleration of growth of demand for slim smartphones in the market, the third is that these LED backlight products are combinations of the ultraprecision machining technology that is our strength, and the fourth is the strength of our manufacturing workplaces and the ability to execute especially rapid expansion of production. It can be said for any manufacturer, but doubling annual sales from 60 billion yen to 120 billion yen in a single year is extremely difficult, and achieving this is an indication that Minebea's robust manufacturing is quite extraordinary. In addition, my strategy has been to prepare space for business expansion at any time based on the belief that timely investments cannot be made unless there is always space in manufacturing sites. The Banwha Site that we plan to use is 30,000 square meters, and it contained a bonded warehouse for ball bearings, and kit-up warehouse for trucks destined for the Cambodian Plant. Yesterday, we decided to convert this Banwha Site from a logistics center to a factory. We will look for a logistics center elsewhere. In addition, we will convert the entire second building of the Cambodian Plant into an LED backlight factory. All of these amount to 16.3 billion yen in investment. With this, we would like to increase sales of LED backlights by at least 20% next fiscal year, but I will explain this in more detail next May.