In geographical terms, we succeeded in increasing sales in Germany in the face of market conditions, which have been difficult on the whole. The directive for the return of certain types of bottles and beverage containers came into effect on May 1, 2006 and gave fresh impetus to our German business. We have benefited from investments in reverse vending machines and were able to expand our strong position in the market for POS systems.

We succeeded in emulating our extraordinarily good performance in fiscal 2004/2005 in Western Europe. Net sales increased across the board. Our business in France was particularly successful, and we were able to replace competitor systems with Wincor Nixdorf systems for several customers operating a large branch network. In addition, we implemented the first major rollouts for self-checkout systems there.

The dynamism recorded within our Retail business continued in Central and Eastern Europe in the year under review. Growth was driven by the continued expansion in these regions of international retail groups which we have been supporting with our solutions for several years, and also by new orders from local retail companies.

Business in Asia/Pacific/Africa increased slightly. Especially in China and Malaysia the business volume increased as a result of new installations of POS systems at local providers. The Americas reached the same level as in fiscal 2004/2005.