To Our Shareholders and Investors:
We announced our five-year Mid-Term Management Plan 2023 “Challenges for Evolution” in April 2019, and this year is the final fiscal year of the plan.
In the last four years, to transform into a company that drives sustainable growth even in a constantly changing business environment, we have been advancing key measures under our three basic policies, “accelerate growth in new domains,” “qualitatively change businesses in the existing domains” and “strengthen the management base.”
In new domains, we strived to expand our automotive business with a focus on anti-reflection films and acquired the optical semiconductor business as a business that is necessary for the next stage of growth following the automobile business. In addition, in existing domains, we have been promoting qualitative changes, such as the expansion of differentiating technology products for sensor modules by developing products in anticipation of technological trends. One achievement of these measures is the significant progress that was made in the transformation of the business portfolio, and last fiscal year we achieved sales and profits that were a record high since our listing.
Applications for our technologies have been growing more widespread amid major changes in the automotive market, including autonomous driving, electrification and vehicles being connected to communications networks. We will focus on sensor materials in addition to products for displays, accelerating the growth of our automotive business. Further, it is expected that initiatives for building an efficient, sustainable society will progress in the future through the use of IoT, big data, AI and other digital technologies. The photonics domain centered on optical semiconductors supports sensing and next-generation high-speed communications that are essential for IoT. We will position it as a growth domain in the next mid-term management plan. We have decided to launch an integrated company on around April 1, 2024 that will lead business growth in the photonics domain. We will accelerate these and other initiatives to achieve the growth of business.
Fiscal 2023 is the final year of the current mid-term management plan. It is an important year for preparing for the next mid-term management plan. We will further strengthen our management base, and execute our growth strategies ahead of schedule, as we seek to achieve sustainable growth and enhance our corporate value.
We ask our shareholders and investors for their continued support.