News Release：Pioneer Corporation's Mobile Entertainment Company Honored With The 2002 Japan Quality Award For Its Excellent Management Performance

Tokyo, Japan - Pioneer Corporation today announced that its divisional company unit, the Mobile Entertainment Company, has received the Japan Quality Award for 2002.
  The Japan Quality Award, which is modeled on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award of the United States, was established by the Japan Productivity Center of Socio- Economic Development in December 1995. It is presented annually to the company most clearly demonstrating that its excellent and superior management quality mechanism has continuously created value through self-innovation throughout the year. There are four fundamental concepts behind the philosophy of the Award, by which a company can carry out self-innovation for the purpose of change and creativity. These are: "Customer Focus," "Competitiveness/Original Competence," "Employee-Oriented," and "Social Responsibility."
  Since 1998, Pioneer Corporation, under its corporate philosophy of "Move the Heart and Touch the Soul," has energetically promoted Customer Satisfaction Management programs with the Group Vision of being an "Entertainment-Creating Company." Under these programs, the Pioneer's Mobile Entertainment Company set out to create value for customers with its own company vision, "From Pioneer, First in the World" for the purpose of realizing the Group Vision.
  Examples of these "value-creating" achievements for consumers include a number of world-firsts: the "component car stereo" offering high-fidelity sound reproduction even under severe in-car surroundings; the initial "car CD player"; the revolutionary "DVD-based car navigation system"; an "HDD-based car navigation system"; and more recently, the new form of car navigation system with wireless communication module. In the pursuit of "customer satisfaction" management, the Pioneer's Mobile Entertainment Company, as a manufacturer, places the customers' confidence in its products and the reliability of these products as its top priorities. It has, therefore, worked hard to maintain and improve product quality and establish a superior after-sales service system.
  With "self-innovation" on a consistent basis as its goal, Pioneer's Mobile Entertainment Company established its "Management Innovation Project." This is an extension of the Corporate Management Quality Improvement Committee, which Pioneer Corporation inaugurated in August 2000. As a result of these activities, the Pioneer's Mobile Entertainment Company has been able to enjoy consistent strong support from consumers and report continuing favorable business performances, leading the company to win the Japan Quality Award for the year 2002.

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Attachment:

1. Reasons for Selection, by the Japan Quality Award Committee;
2. About Mobile Entertainment Company of Pioneer Corporation; and
3. About Japan Quality Award

Attachment

1 ) Reasons for Selection (by the Japan Quality Award Committee)

The Mobile Entertainment Company of Pioneer Corporation has established its position as the leader of the industry, with its outright customer-oriented approach in the car audio and car navigation system area. Behind its success, the Company has developed an environment that allows open communication with every stakeholders within and without the Company, including customers. It conducts activities in various aspects of corporate management to create high value for customers through the pursuit in a united manner of future technologies. This is pursuant to the spirit handed down since the foundation of Pioneer Corporation, a spirit that drives the Company to continual challenge for the creation of unique products and the search for new markets under the company vision of "From Pioneer, First in the World." As a result of these efforts, the Company has developed and introduced a succession of peerless products and services offering new value, and achieved customer satisfaction as well as corporate performance ranked as the highest level in the industry.
The following are the specific points that were highly valued in the examination:

1. Company executives are playing the leading role in creating opportunities to share the value that drives the Company to continual challenges for "From Pioneer, First in the World."
   In a bid to create value for customers as advocated in the company vision, "From Pioneer, First in the World," executives themselves are taking the lead in activities to preserve and develop the Company's corporate culture of placing value on challenges. This has been handed down since the foundation of Pioneer Corporation to create a free and lively environment without barriers between companies, divisions, sections and ranks of personnel to let them achieve their goals.
2. A corporate culture placing value on dialogues helps the Company to keep on producing new values.
   Open and lively dialogues have taken root in the organization as corporate culture and thorough discussions are held among executives, employees and business partners each time a key decision in product development, policy formation, and other occasions, is made. Through these outright discussions beyond divisions, the Company keeps on producing still higher value for its customers, the embodiment of which can be found in any of its products, service plans, production and proposals.
3. The Company's strong creed and sense of responsibility as the leader of the industry has led to the industry's sound development today.
   According to its strong creed and sense of responsibility as the leader of the industry, a company that creates a market and develops it soundly, the Company pursues perfectly sound management practices. It places value on the transparency of management and constantly practices honest customer relations with "Nothing to hide" as its fundamental rule. Such practices by the Company have also helped maintain and reinforce the soundness of the entire industry.
4. Commitment called "NIGIRI" helps strengthen a sense of responsibility for creating a concrete value.
   A divisional manager of the Company makes a grave commitment to achieve his or her business goals through dialogues with executives in the form of "NIGIRI." Through discussions to form NIGIRI, divisional business goals are coordinated with the Company's business goals for their achievement, while a sense of responsibility for creating value is cultivated.
5. The organization's learning through accumulation of experience in customer relations has resulted in its competitive edges.
   With the recognition that its competitive edges come from lessons it learned through customer relations, the Company applies such a behavioral norm systematically from product development to service, sales and its relations with business partners. It also actively implements training programs to cultivate such skills so that its experience may be expanded further.
6. A product development process based on "Actual Site, Actual Fact and Actual Product" covering all development phases concurrently is the base of its competitive edges.
   Pursuant to a behavioral guideline, "Actual Site, Actual Fact and Actual Product," every member of the Company shares a desire to obtain deep understanding of customers. One method of achieving this is through forthright discussions among all members concerned in the market and, especially, by listening to the voices of its customers. The Company can thus unveil needs and set a product development process in motion before anybody else does, enabling it to realize a product, service and a production process concurrently; this gives the Company the base to create its first-in-the-world products.
7. Accumulation of know-how from the past experience enables it to release products quickly and achieve business performance surpassing its competitors'.
   In its activities to realize first-in-the-world products on the basis of the full understanding of customers' needs, the Company has accumulated technology and know-how that enables it to develop and produce products that can endure the harsh environment of use particular to car electronics products. With such technology and know-how as a base, the Company has achieved excellent business performance surpassing its competitors' by starting in-house production of core units for car audio products and quickly releasing products incorporating new technology.

2 ) About Mobile Entertainment Company of Pioneer Corporation:

The Mobile Entertainment Company is a division of Pioneer Corporation, responsible for planning, designing, producing, marketing and selling car audio and car navigation systems all over the world. The Mobile Entertainment Company contributes approximately 50% to Pioneer Corporation's sales (on a parent-alone basis.)

3 ) About Japan Quality Award:

Modeled on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award of the United States, which is the world de facto standard for management innovation programs, the Japan Quality Award was established in December 1995 by the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development. The purpose of the Japan Quality Award is to recognize enterprises that excel in high management quality mechanisms, and that are able to create new values through self-innovation while operating the entire management from the customers' point of view. This global management innovation program is implemented in over 50 countries worldwide. For more details about the Japan Quality Award.