Nanophoton’s 19th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders was held on June 15. Both non-consolidated and consolidated operations were profitable for the fifth consecutive year, with domestic operations in particular achieving a 40% increase in sales and a 9% profit margin (vs. sales) over the previous year. After five years of concurrently holding the position of president, I shifted gears from restructuring to growth. We have graduated from the conventional contract manufacturing system to standardization, inventory control, and immediate delivery. To achieve this, we are fundamentally reviewing our manufacturing methods and product structure. We have also shifted our salary and compensation system from the Japanese style to the Western style.

On the other hand, sales in Korea have taken a turn for the worse under the movement restrictions imposed by the virus infection countermeasures. We have already taken various recovery measures, and taking the opportunity of the partial relaxation of immigration restrictions in Japan in June, our sales and technical members in Japan and Korea immediately resumed their bilateral travel, introducing new technologies and products to Korea and exchanging service engineers. The socioeconomic situation remains unstable due to material shortages, the historic depreciation of the yen, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but as always, we are taking these opportunities as opportunities to promote structural reforms.

Personally, I have entered the turn of my term of office as President of Optica, an international organization. My experience as President of Optica has also been instrumental in raising the profile of Nanophoton and Nanophoton’s management.

Not only the sudden upheaval in the economy and international politics, but also in the natural environment, there have been unexpected disruptions such as record-breaking guerrilla rains, lightning and hailstorms, the shortest rainy season in history, and record-breaking high temperatures. Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has declared that “there is no doubt that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the cause of global warming” and has projected future temperatures, we cannot even predict tomorrow’s weather, let alone decades from now.

Nanophoton has lived through various crises and will continue to grow sustainably. We look forward to your continued support for Nanophoton this year.

4 July, 2022
Nanophoton Corporation
Chairman and Representative, Satoshi Kawata