text: outside the company: the U.S. economy, interest rates, oil 
  
  prices and competitive actions. Incentives and aggressive 
  
  discounting are both disturbing the marketplace. We’ve 
  
  reached a level where this is actually confusing customers 
  
  about the amount of discount that is available in the 
  
  market. These are all things that we can’t directly control. 
  
  Looking longer term over the period of NISSAN Value- 
  
  Up, I think it’s fair to say that we will return to double-digit 
  
  growth, because we’re going to have some terrific new 
  
  products that will allow us to enter new segments. The 
  
  product will drive growth, but it would be a mistake to 
  
  discount the increasing strength of brand recognition. 
  
  We’ve spent roughly a billion dollars in upgrading Nissan 
  
  dealer facilities up to 2004. This will continue to some 
  
  degree in 2005 and 2006, while we’ve begun the same 
  
  process for Infiniti. People see exciting change happening 
  
  at Nissan and Infiniti. 
  
  Over the long term, one minor risk for us is that we can 
  
  no longer catch people by surprise. That was exciting, but 
  
  that period is gone, which represents a challenge for us. As 
  
  we come off a year with more than 20 percent growth, the 