At the start of fiscal 2005/2006, Wincor Nixdorf assumed that net sales would increase by 8% and that EBITA would lift by 10%. The Banking segment was forecast to grow at a more pronounced rate than the Retail segment. Activities abroad and stronger business in Germany should boost sales. We projected a further increase for both our product business and also, at a stronger rate, for our Solutions/Services business.

Our expectations were already surpassed after the first few months of the fiscal year. This was due in particular to business in Western and Eastern European countries and significantly improved performance in the German market. In addition, our product business grew much more dynamically than anticipated.

Against this background, we revised our forecasts upward when we published our results for the first half. We lifted our net sales forecast to 10% from 8% and our EBITA forecast to 15% from 10%.

This positive trend continued in the second half of the fiscal year, thus reinforcing our adjusted forecast. On announcing our results for the first nine months, we outlined that the forecasts for net sales and EBITA represented the lower threshold for our results in fiscal 2005/2006.