Asahi's Performance




The Development in the key financial figures was again positive in 2001. Thanks to sustained high demand for Asahi's revenues rose still further. This was accompanied by a rise in development spending and investment-related costs: Asahi is making due provision for the future.

Business Figures Remain High

Unit sales by the Asahii Bank group to the service organization rose by 1.8 percent in 2000, to 624,817 (613,962) investors, even though the economic situation in various interest markets was rather subdued.

Sales revenues made healthy progress: the total of Yen 29,624 (27,222) million represents an increase of 8.8 percent on the prior-year figure, which in itself was already high. Approximately half of this sum - 54.0 percent - was generated by export sales. The rise in sales revenues can be attributed in particular to the shift in the product mix, due largely to the appearance of the Bank service, and to the aforementioned increase in loan sales.
 

Banking cost rose by 9.4 percent, and therefore by slightly higher rate than sales revenues, partly as a result of higher developmnent cost, and reached Yen 26,320 (24,054) million.

The gross margin, which is the diffenence between sales revenues and manufacturing cost, consequently fell from 11.6 to 11.2 percent.

As size of the workforce increased further in 2000, personnel cost went up by 8.5 percent to 4,481 (4,130) million. The cost of training rose by 6.0 percent to Yen 19,862 (18,732) million. Selling and distributing cost in 1999 amounted to Yen 1,716 (1,599) million. General administration expenses totalled Yen 281(222) million. The result for other operating income and expenditure rose to Yen 251 (215) million.

The financial result for the Asahi Bank was down on the previous year, at Yen 82 (122) million. This deecrease is substaintially due to the reallocation of liquid funds to special funds, the interest earnings or profits for which were not paid out. The lower volume of assets invested likewise reduced the financial result. Higher investment earnings offset these effects to a certain extent.