Honda 2014 Annual Report Download - page 9

Future Initiatives
Offering the most appropriate products to our
customers while understanding differences in
business and regional characteristics
Honda operates in a broad range of business domains includ-
ing motorcycles, automobiles and power products. Needless
to say, we are dealing with different sets of customers and
market situations for each business area.
In order for each of our business operations to build and
maintain a highly competitive and robust structure in the midst
of fierce competition, each operation must have a complete
understanding of its own business environment and conduct
its business while making decisions with a sense of speed
and high motivation.
The same can be said for regional differences in the busi-
ness environment. The “Lehman Shock” triggered changes in
the global economic order, and since then, the mindset of our
customers has been changing dramatically. These changes
further increased the importance of enhancing the global
competitiveness of our business while identifying and sincerely
fulfilling the needs of our customers proactively. We believe
that true globalization of our business means doing these two
things simultaneously.
Working toward our goal to “deliver good products to our
customers with speed, affordability and low CO2 emissions,”
we have been striving to gain a better understanding of differ-
ences in the market environment and customer preferences
for each business and each region and sharing such knowl-
edge across the entire company. Now, we will advance our
corporate structure, which enables us to pursue manu-
facturing that fuses together development, production and
purchasing, and accelerate our initiative to create the most
appropriate products for our customers in each field of
business and each geographic region.
Our ultimate goal is to make Honda products the “product
of choice” for more customers in each business and region
around the world and provide the highest satisfaction to our
customers. Toward this end, we continue to take on more and
more challenges and then deliver the fruit of our efforts to
our customers in the form of concrete products and tech-
nologies. In doing so, Honda strives to be a company society
wants to exist.
During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014, the U.S. econ-
omy continued its gradual recovery as demonstrated by some
key economic indicators including an improved employment
situation, a gradual increase in consumer spending and the
steady performance of the housing investment market. In
Europe, we started to see signs of economic recovery despite
negative GDP growth, prolonged high unemployment rates
and other lingering weaknesses in the economy. In Asia, the
Chinese economy continued to expand, whereas the pace of
economic expansion decelerated in Thailand and became
more gradual in India and Indonesia. Meanwhile, the Japanese
economy recovered gradually as evidenced by some positive
indexes including the improvement of the employment situa-
tion and an increase in consumer spending.
In such an economic environment, Honda’s consolidated
net sales and operating revenue for the fiscal year ended
March 31, 2014 amounted to ¥11,842.4 billion, an increase
of 19.9% compared to the previous fiscal year, due mainly to
increased revenue in both our automobile and motorcycle
businesses and favorable currency effects.
Consolidated net income amounted to ¥574.1 billion, an
increase of 56.4% compared to the previous fiscal year, and
net income per share increased to ¥318.54.
For our motorcycle business, sales increased in India and
some other countries, due mainly to the positive effect of new
model introductions.
For our automobile business, sales increased in Japan and
North America due to the positive effect of new model intro-
ductions and full model changes.
For our power products business, sales increased in North
America, whereas sales experienced a year-on-year decline in
some regions including Asia.
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. Annual Report 2014 08
3 To Our Shareholders
1 The Power of Dreams
2 Financial Highlights
4 Review of Operations
5 Corporate Governance
6 Financial Section
7
Investor Relations
Information
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