The automotive industry is currently promoting advancements that facilitate society's transition towards a mobility-based society. This can be achieved through safer, more convenient vehicles that are consistent with the CASE (Connected, Automated/Autonomous, Shared&Services, Electric/Electrification) concept as well as by information and communication technology (ICT) reforms and mobility as a service (MaaS).
Contrary to historic annual growth, global automobile production dropped sharply in 2020 due to the spread of the new coronavirus, COVID-19. Although it has been on a recovery trend since then, it has yet to recover to pre-COVID-19 production levels. Additionally, the business environment continues to be very severe due to soaring material and labor costs, persistently high transportation costs and the impact of foreign exchange rates.
While medium term sustained market growth and recovery is expected due to the motorization of emerging countries, it is also true that the global automotive environment is undergoing large-scale changes.
In light of this challenging environment, HARADA has redefined its medium to long-term management direction and has identified a proactive response to CASE and the diversification of mobility as its two major future management initiatives. Based on these directions, HARADA will concentrate its efforts on profit structure reforms aimed at increasing corporate value and strengthening its earnings structure by expanding peripheral and new business.
Specifically, we will develop technologies that society desires and actively market these products, anticipating the trend toward CASE development in the automotive industry, as stated at the beginning of this Web message.
We will also respond to the diversification of mobility beyond the conventional automobile, which ranges from self-driving cars to drones and mobile robotics.
In addition to proactively responding to CASE and the diversification of mobility, we will strengthen our earnings structure through thorough cost reductions and other measures.
In the face of such external changes, however, one factor remains a constant, namely Harada's manufacturing ethos, which we have maintained since our founding in 1958 and has been the basis of our extensive track record as a world-leading manufacturer of automotive antennas.
HARADA will continue to uphold its mission as the world's leading manufacturer of in-vehicle antennas, while at the same time, both responding to change and cherishing the unchanging values it has built up over the years. Through embracing the advancement of CASE and mobility, HARADA will achieve further growth.