DENSO Corporation today announced global financial results for the first-half ending September 30, 2009:

• Consolidated net sales totaled 1,302.2 billion yen (US$14.4 billion), a 31.2 percent decrease from the previous year.
• Consolidated operating income totaled 9.8 billion yen (US$108.2 million), a 91.5 percent decrease from the previous year.
• Consolidated net income totaled 5.1 billion yen (US$56.0 million), a 91.4 percent decrease from the previous year.

In Japan, in addition to a decrease in domestic car production and product exports mainly to North America and Europe, currency exchange losses led to a decrease in sales to 892.2 billion yen (US$9.9 billion), a 30.3 percent decrease from the previous year. Despite cost reduction efforts, the lower production volumes and currency exchange losses led to an operating loss of 20.2 billion yen (US$224.4 million), a decrease of 64.9 billion yen (US$719.6 million) from the previous year's operating income.

In Europe, despite some countriesf car scrappage incentive schemes, lower car production for Japanese auto manufacturers led to a decrease in sales to 194.1 billion yen (US$2.2 billion), a 33.9 percent decrease from last year. Reductions in fixed costs led to operating income of 2.5 billion yen (US$27.7 million), a decrease of 6.6 billion yen (US$73.0 million) from the previous year's operating income.
"With steady results from the reduction of fixed costs, which is one of our primary activities to improve earnings, we have made an upward revision to our full-year forecasts for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, with incomes returning to the black," said Katoh. "On the other hand, the future business environment from the next fiscal year on is unclear as incentive programs come to an end at each country and with expected progress of higher yen, and we will continue to work to improve earnings."