At this time, in order to respond to vigorous demand for Guided Wave Optical Multi/Demultiplexers for WDM use we have been planning to increase manufacturing facilities and strengthen production capability at our Takasago Works in Hitachi City, Ibaragi Prefecture.

Since the latter half of last year the Guided Wave Optical Multi/ Demultiplexers business has rapidly expanded, sales for the fiscal year 2000 were: 3.9 billion Yen, and forecasts for fiscal year 2001 are at: 7 billion Yen.

This is because, with the popularization of the Internet and development of Multi-media services, amounts of information transmission are in the midst of rapidly increasing, and with the WDM technology business concentrated in North America the expansion of transmission capacity is being carried out. As Guided Wave Optical Multi/Demultiplexers are the key components for the realization of WDM transmission, they are also experiencing heightened demand.

Along with the rise in demand, since April this year we have spent around 2 billion Yen on the reinforcement of manufacturing facilities etc. in Takasago Works, and have quickly pushed forward our plans to strengthen our production capability. However, as our Guided Wave Optical Multi/Demultiplexers have been evaluated as having exceptional reliability, growth in demand is far exceeding our initial forecast.

Because of this, we are making an additional 2.5 billion Yen investment in facilities, in order to further strengthen our production capabilities.

Applying our fine semi-conductor processing technology and our optical fiber manufacturing technology, we have been developing our Guided Wave Optical Multi/Demultiplexers since around 1995 and in 1997 were the first in the world to successfully mass-produce 8 channel applied products. Furthermore, amongst the trend for multi channels, in 1999 we were the first in the world to successfully mass-produce 40 channel applied products. We are undoubtedly world leaders in this area of technological development and currently hold the top global market share.

We are planning to fully address market needs as with the current 2nd phase strengthening of production facilities in full operation, the current monthly production capacity of 350 pieces/month will be increased to 1,300 pieces/ month by January 2001.

In the future, we are going to promote the development and expansion of our Guided Wave Optical Multi/Demultiplexers line up as follows:

*1	compound products such as Guided Wave Optical Multi/Demultiplexers and VOA ,both using PLC (Planar Light wave Circuit) technology.
*2	products corresponding with next generation transmission band," L-Band" As a result of these measures, we forecast total sales of all Guided Wave Optical Multi/Demultiplexers to reach the 14 billion Yen mark by 2001.