2023 New Year Message from Toshimitsu Taiko, President and CEO
150th Anniversary Marks a New Start, Contributing to Sustainable Growth of Society with Our Imaging Prowess and DX

A Happy New Year to you all.

In 2022, people's actions shifted significantly to coexistence with Covid-19. As “zero Covid” restrictions were eased in China toward the end of the year, there were many moves globally to overcome the constraints in economic activities posed by the pandemic. Looking back at the first quarter of FY2022, we faced a difficult time in the supply chain with the lockdown in China. In addition, the Ukrainian situation caused a sharp rise in resource and energy prices to cast a huge shadow on the global economy.

Under these harsh conditions, my greatest mission is to forcefully pull the whole group forward so that Konica Minolta can once again soar as a growth company. The most important tasks for me are to restore the confidence of employees and to work to regain the trust of all stakeholders, including shareholders, investors and customers. To achieve these tasks, I will keep addressing with sincerity each and every one of the challenges we face.

In 2023, in addition to soaring energy prices and rising interest rates, we must be prepared for challenging external conditions, including the risk of customers' restraints in capital investment, depending on the business domain. Against the backdrop of this environment, the importance of sustainability should be a central focus in our business management. Konica Minolta has established five material issues from a number of social challenges and is working to solve social and environmental issues while growing its businesses. This is where our business opportunities lay. We will work to improve both social and economic value by enhancing our genre-top strategy, with deep insight on the issues we can solve together with our customers through the advancement of imaging technology fostered through our long history and image analysis technology utilizing DX.

2023 marks Konica Minolta’s 150^th anniversary. Thanks to all of our stakeholders, we have been doing business as a company for a century and a half since Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic and lithographic materials in 1873. There is no better time than now, for me, to extend my heartfelt appreciation to everybody who supports us across the world.

For these long years, Konica Minolta has been creating new value in response to people's hopes and desires to “see.” Our businesses were founded to capture the moment in the world as it is with tangible images. Now, through visualizing technology and solutions that capture what was once invisible to human eyes, we take signs of illness and subtle variations in the quality of manufacturing. Konica Minolta continues to deliver innovation by anticipating trends in the business environment, from changes in remote work to the manufacturing process within various industries and business categories so that we contribute to efforts to address challenges faced by customers and society. Our 150-year history is indeed a series of transformation. We position this milestone year as a new start to further leverage the power of imaging in driving sustainable growth for people and society.

I offer my sincere wishes for your good health and happiness, and would greatly appreciate your continued support and encouragement for the Konica Minolta Group in 2023.

Toshimitsu Taiko
President and CEO
Konica Minolta, Inc.