Morinaga Milk Industry Co. said Thursday that its group net profit for fiscal 2003 rose 34.1 percent from the previous year to 6.46 billion yen.
This fourth straight yearly increase was attributed to ongoing cost-cutting and steady sales.
The dairy products maker said its consolidated pretax profit edged up 2.8 percent to 15.14 billion yen, on sales of 565.54 billion yen, an increase of 1.3 percent.
Both pretax profit and sales grew for the second straight year. Per-share net profit came to 25.34 yen, up from 18.79 yen.
Morinaga Milk said its efforts to cut costs by reducing inventories made up for negative sales factors such as the unusually cool summer.
It also said a decline of 1.51 billion yen in costs from the write-down of its securities investments contributed to the increase in its group net profit.
The company will pay an annual dividend of 6 yen per share, unchanged from the previous year.