Q&A of Financial Results for Third Quarter of the Year Ending March 31, 2015
The following includes questions and answers at the conference for the financial results for Third Quarter of the Year Ending March 31, 2015.
Precision Equipment Business
Q. What can you tell us about the downward revision to the sales forecast for this fiscal year in the semiconductor lithography business?
A. The sales outlook of the ArF immersion scanners for this fiscal year has been revised to 9 units from 18 units, and the number of units of new semiconductor lithography systems dropped to 19 units from 34 units. The number of ArF immersion scanners fell by 9 units, but of these, 4 were the result of customers changed their plans and pushing back the delivery to next fiscal year. With respect to the other 5 units, we are currently in talks with customers about them. We take the significant revision to our forecast very seriously, and we will continue to work to secure sales units and strengthen our earnings structure.
Q. What can you tell us about the sales outlook for this fiscal year and the market outlook for the future in the FPD lithography business?
A. We have made no changes to our forecast of 34 units sold for this fiscal year ending March 2015. As of right now, in CY2015 we are expecting a roughly 30% year-on-year increase (approximately 70 units) based on our expectation for a recovery in demand for FPD lithography systems for small and medium-sized high-definition panels, in light of the current market environment. The environment will remain competitive, but we are aiming for a year-on-year increase in sales units by maintaining our high market share centered on lithography systems for high-definition panels, which is our strength.
Imaging Products Business
Q. What can you tell us about the reduction in the full-year forecast for sales units of digital cameras-interchangeable lens type for this fiscal year?
A. We have lowered our forecast for the digital cameras-interchangeable lens type market volume that estimated last time in November by 1 million units to 13.7 million units. We changed our forecast for Europe, particularly Russia, which has been impacted by the depreciation of the Ruble, and China. Also, we suspended production of the D750 digital SLR camera for approximately one month after a problem was identified at the end of 2014. We are resuming full production and shipments from February and are working to recover from the situation, but an impact on sales units in 4Q will be unavoidable. In light of the above conditions, we made a downward revision to our full-year forecast for sales units of digital cameras-interchangeable lens type, lowering the forecast to 4.65 million units, a decline of 250,000 units from the last November's forecast.
Overall
Q. What can you tell us about the impacts of foreign exchange rates?
A. We have changed our assumed foreign exchange rate for 4Q to 115 Yen/USD (versus the assumption of 100 Yen/USD made in November 2014), while the assumed Yen/Euro rate of 135 Yen has been left unchanged. Currently, we expect every 1 yen change in the Yen/USD exchange rate to impact net sales by approximately 900 million yen, while every 1 yen fluctuation in the Yen/Euro exchange rate is expected to impact net sales by roughly 300 million yen. Similarly, we expect every 1 yen change in both the Yen/USD and the Yen/Euro exchange rate to impact operating income by approximately 100 million yen.