Message from the President
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To Our Shareholders and Investors
Hitoshi Mizorogi
President and CEO |
DISCO faced a challenging and changing operating environment in the fiscal year that ended March 2008. The global economy decelerated due to a worldwide credit crunch that was triggered by the emergence of the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. Moreover, manufacturers reined in capital investment because of falling DRAM prices in semiconductor markets.
Despite these circumstances, we at DISCO continued to do what we have always done: work to satisfy our customers and provide them with the unique technology solutions that only available from DISCO. We enjoyed especially strong sales from package singulation applications and silicon wafer grinding applications. This led us to achieve record high sales for the term.
Semiconductors and electronic components are easily susceptible to the ups and downs of the business cycle, but, at the same time, they are indispensable to modern life. We expect demand for these products to steadily increase as emerging markets continue their remarkable growth.
We have focus on responding to demand for precision processing tooling (consumables), which are indispensable to semiconductor production and less susceptible than precision processing equipment to capital investment cycles. We have also committed our resources to the development of cutting edge processes in areas such as laser cutting and ultrathin wafers. Demand for increasingly thin wafers is firmly rooted, especially in the NAND flash memory sector, as one of the growth drivers of the semiconductor industry. There will also be substantial need in coming years for technology innovations in areas such as three-dimensional packaging.
We are now moving toward the realization of our goals for 2010 as laid out in the DISCO Vision and intend to maintain our profit margins while further streamlining operations. With the expectation that the global market will continue to grow, we further plan to proactively invest resources in cutting edge solutions to enhance production systems and ensure ongoing growth. |
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