Market view

"The Chinese market continues to be very strong for us. Our revenues for 2007 were up more than 100% form the previous year. The other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically Thailand and Vietnam, are exhibiting strong growth. Australia is a good market for us, based on the mining activity down there."

"There is a dichotomy in Europe between Eastern and Western Europe. Western Europe is exhibiting solid growth, but Eastern Europe is growing significantly quicker, and quicker than we had expected. Using our loader backhoes as n example, our business in Western Europe was up +28% over the last two years, yet in Eastern Europe it was up approximately +235%. So there's significant difference in growth."

"The US is soft, which is not a surprise. While one of our competitors is suggesting the US is in recession, we don't quite see it that way, but revenues are down mid-teen percentages. In spite of that, based on demand in the rest of the world, we are able to offset that drop in revenue in the US with significant growth elsewhere.

"In a large part we expect those trends to continue. We expect the US to be down a little bit - soft is probably the best description. We think Europe will continue to show solid growth, and frankly everywhere else, particularly in China, we see very aggressive growth rates."