Dear Shareholders

I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your continued and kind support on our corporate activities.

Since I assumed the position of president of this company on July 1st of the last year, one year has already passed. Amid the recession that is said to be once a hundred years, such severe situations prevailed that our company also had to take a defensive position. Under such circumstances, with a solid determination that “Lasertec also has to be born again”, I have given myself up to reinforcement of product development for carving out our next generation and cultivation of muscular management culture and also I have been engaged in a wide range of reforms.

With regard to the development of new products, by renewing the system of all the technology sectors, we have succeeded in developing 5 new products within this one year under the development policies such as [higher: reinforcement of already existing fields], [wider: expansion to peripheral fields of the already existing fields] and [newer: accelerated development of new fields]. With regard to reinforcement of management culture, as a result of strict cost management and reduction of fixed cost based on change of the budget management structure, we have been able to move into the black, surmounting the heavy deficit in the former financial period.

The market situation and capital investment trend in the manufacturing equipments field to which our company is closely related has been recovering at long last from the latter half of the last year. Especially in the semiconductor industry, semiconductor top makers worldwide have started in full swing capital investments aiming enhancement of production and also large scale capital investment aiming further cost reduction and finer pattern processes for reinforced competitiveness backed up by the growing momentum of needs for semiconductor devices as can be seen in mobile phones, digital cameras, personal computers, flat TV’s and so on. We would also like to grow concurrently with this trend, by concentrating management resources such as technical, sales, customer support capabilities in this semiconductor field.

The greatest strengths of our company are the creativity that uniquely produces way-out methods for solving problems customers have and also the development capability to commercialize the ideas for solving those problems into products quicker than anyone else by combining electronics, precision mechanics and image processing technology with applied optics technology that is the core technology of our company. We promote to create an environment in which the strength of our company can be exerted in full blast and to further reinforce development capabilities.

Among the 5 new products, an inspection system X700 series for the most advanced photomasks used in the semiconductor field, developed in the aim to reinforce the existing business field, is the product to be the tow vehicle of the business achievement of this fiscal year. Also, the PV Cell Conversion Efficiency Distribution Measurement System and the SiC Wafer Inspection/Review System developed for the new market of environmentally friendly or green devices, which is expected to grow worldwide, are positioned as the advance party for the development of the new market and accordingly, the defensive management in the former financial period will be taken over by the [offensive management]. And through our contribution to performance advances and productivity improvement of customers’ products, we aim to realize a newer growth and to become a highly profitable company.

We would like you to keep kindly supporting our business with expectation for further growth of Lasertec toward future.