Fujitsu 2001 Annual Report Download - page 4

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Toward the Era of Broadband Internet
To Our Shareholders
From left:
Tadashi Sekizawa, Chairman
Naoyuki Akikusa, President and CEO
THE POSSIBILITIES ARE INFINITE
Fujitsu Helps Open Up the Broadband
Internet Era
As the Internet’s reach continues to spread around the world
in the 21st century, an infrastructure for information and
communications systems is rapidly being put into place. The
Internet itself is evolving toward higher speeds and greater
capacity, and we are seeing the full-fledged emergence of a
framework for interactive communication and mobile usage.
In anticipation of these trends, we at Fujitsu have been
continuing to build up our business around the Internet, in
line with our business strategy of “Everything on the
Internet.” To that end, we are placing special emphasis on the
following three points:
Fiscal 2000 Performance Summary
Throughout the world, the rapid development of the
broadband Internet is bringing major changes to both the
ways corporations do business and the lifestyles of
individuals. The Internet has established itself as the new
social infrastructure of our time, and the IT industry, which
is driving the future development of an abundant network
society, enjoys exceptional growth prospects in the medium
term.
During the first half of fiscal 2000, the market
environment for the Fujitsu Group was encouraging.
Economic conditions in Japan gradually improved, boosted
by such factors as higher corporate investment in
information technology and greater demand for personal
digital appliances and personal computers, and economic
conditions in both the U.S. and Europe were still positive.
The market environment rapidly deteriorated in the second
half of the fiscal year, however, as the economic slowdown
in the U.S. and the factors behind it—namely, capital
investment cutbacks and inventory adjustments—spread to
both Japan and Europe.
Against this backdrop, we continued restructuring efforts
to concentrate the resources of the Fujitsu Group on growth
areas. Total sales in fiscal 2000 were ¥5,484.4 billion, a 4.4%
increase over the previous year. Improved sales and a
concerted effort throughout the group to lower operating
expenses were among the factors that boosted operating
income to a record ¥244.0 billion, a 62.7% increase over the
previous year.
Our net income in this period declined by 80.1%, to ¥8.5
billion, as a result of such factors as the extraordinary losses
associated with the realignment of our U.S. subsidiary
Amdahl to the open systems business and structural reforms
in the business operations of both U.K.-based ICL and U.S.-
based DMR Consulting. To strengthen our financial base, we
implemented measures to promote greater management
efficiency and were able to achieve an ¥88.8 billion reduction
in interest-bearing liabilities.