In the office field, sales continued to be strong, mainly for high-speed A3 color MFPs with an output of more than 31 pages per minute. This was the primary reason for an increase in the gross profit margin. Sales volumes of monochrome units turned around to a year-on-year gain in the third quarter. Although one reason for this was the slightly low level recorded in the previous year, the primary reason was the effect of new products that we began launching in Europe in the third quarter. In terms of year-on-year changes in sales by region after excluding foreign exchange effects, growth was posted overall although there were variations in strength and weakness between regions. Details are included on page 25 of the supplementary information, but sales of non-hardware were solid. In the production print field, sales of both color and monochrome units increased as sales of non-hardware remained buoyant.
As this slide shows, sales were up 8% after excluding the effect of M&As and foreign exchange rates. Personally, I was hoping for double-digit growth to occur organically.