Breaking down its consolidated figures (CI No 949) – for those who sense a touch of deja vu about the results of Japanese companies, all the big ones report two sets of figures – first those of the parent company – unconsolidated – reflecting the parts of the business wholly-owned by the shareholders, and then the consolidated figures, which include operations of all the partially-owned subsidiaries as well – NEC Corp says that domestic sales rose 12.2% to $15,760m while international business rose 7.7% to $5,964m – notice how those supposedly ruthless exporters, the major Japanese companies, in fact do far more business at home than abroad, almost 73% in NEC’s case; by sectors, computers and peripherals rose 12% to $9,040m, suggesting that NEC is now neck-and-neck with DEC and Unisys for the title of the world’s third biggest computer company after IBM and Fujitsu; component sales rose 13.6% to $3,704m; communications equipment rose 8.2% at $6,062m and consumer electronics business rose 13.6% to $2,914m; the company plans to invest $1,760m in plant and equipment this fiscal year, up 10% on the 1987-88 figure.
