www.barco.com

Barco, an international company with regional headquarters in Shanghai, China, is active in three key areas of imaging technology. Barco designs and develops solutions for large screen visualization, display solutions for life-critical applications, and systems for visual inspection. The company employs over 4100 people and realized a sales figure of more than 669 million Euro in 2002. Barco has a network of subsidiaries, distributors and agents in almost 100 countries. Barco is quoted on Brussels/Euronext, is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company.

As a market driven company, Barco targets world leadership in its selected markets. Currently Barco is active in the markets of traffic, surveillance, broadcasting, utilities, telecommunications, simulation and virtual & augmented reality, events, media, digital cinema, air traffic control, defense & security, medical imaging, avionics, textiles and food sorting. Through acquisitions and major R&D investments, Barco consolidates and expands its leadership in these constantly growing markets.

Barco is a global company, present in almost 100 countries. R&D and manufacturing facilities are located in several countries of Europe, in the USA and in Asia. Barco's skilled and highly motivated employees are key to the company's success. Their motivation is stimulated by opportunities for ongoing training and career growth. Barco wants to operate in harmony with the environment and takes all necessary measures to reach this goal.

Barco is headquartered in Belgium.

In China, Barco is focused on the following fast growing markets:

Media and Entertainment
Barco develops giant LED display walls for use in high ambient light environments, both for indoor (ILITE) and outdoor (DLITE, SLite, TP series) use. From large-screen displays in sports arenas and giant corporate branding media in corporate headquarters, to out-of-home communication, such as digital advertising billboards in shopping centers, Barco renders messages with unprecedented impact.

For the Events market
Barco provides rental and staging companies all over the world with top class, large-screen display solutions. The company's LED displays and state-of-the-art projectors form a complete rental range of advanced projection and large format display solutions, inclusive of events software, both for indoor and outdoor venues. They are used for a wide range of renowned and largescale events, including car shows, exhibitions, concerts and corporate shows. Barco is world leader in this market with over 35% market share.

Digital Cinema
In Barco's Digital Cinema, the traditional film copy is replaced with digital technology, which eliminates degradation of film quality and results in superior projection quality, reduced duplication cost, improved time to market and greater flexibility for theater owners. This new technology will soon allow theaters around the globe to receive and show films simultaneously, and will yield a drastic reduction of distribution costs.

Control rooms
Barco is regarded the leading expert in control room solutions for broadcasting, telecommunications, utilities, traffic control and surveillance applications. Its project approach focuses on assisting the customer from the earliest stages of concept engineering to the final delivery of the control center. Barco has a worldwide leadership with over 45% market share.

Simulation & Virtual Reality
Barco's high-performance display products and solutions for simulation and training are used in a wide range of applications, including flight, driving, ship bridge and air traffic control simulators. Barco Simulation's expertise in large-screen projection is vital for recreating reality through computer generated images, offering full interactivity to make trainees cope with the real danger without taking the actual risk.
Virtual and Augmented Reality technology is used in the oil and gas exploration industry, car design and pharmaceutical & scientific research, and leads to increased insights, faster and more accurate decisions, and therefore shorter time to market.
Barco's Edutainment offering helps Science Centers, Museums and Planetariums in creating a new interactive world for their visitors, instead of the traditional one-way communication.

Presentation
Barco's intelligent projection solutions facilitate video conferencing and real-time data exchange between people at multiple sites. These solutions turn meeting rooms of large corporations, universities and conference centers into virtual meeting rooms, with participants from all over the world conferencing as if they were in the same room. With the latest iQ Pro projector series, Barco is the first to have a powerful computer server integrated in its projector design, resulting in true integration of IT and AV (Audio Visual) solutions.

Medical Imaging
Today, Barco is a global leader in radiology softcopy display technology for digital imaging modalities and PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System). Imaging modalities are systems used to acquire patient images such as ultrasound, CT, MR, X-ray etc. PACS are systems that manages the communication, display and archiving of diagnostic and clinical images as well as other patient-related medical information.
Barco provides the industry's largest medical equipment manufacturers with premium quality, high-resolution diagnostic systems. Its range of displays, imaging boards, radiology display systems and QA (Quality Assurance) software was expanded with DICOM-compliant projection systems and a complete family of grayscale LCD solutions in 2002.

Defense & Security
Barco develops, manufactures and sells rugged display solutions for airborne, shipboard and ground-based applications in very demanding and harsh environments. Its range of consoles, flat panel displays, graphics generators and HMI (Human Machine Interface) solutions, has been especially designed and tested for use in extreme environmental conditions. Solutions for life-critical visualization all feature a modular approach to allow for future technology updates or functionality expansion. The company's product portfolio was widened in 2002 with the Digital Scribe RGB recording solution, the Vista 4000 COTS (Commercial-off-the -Shelf) console family and 17" and 18" modular rugged flat displays.

Avionics
The avionics product family focuses on three major parts of the cockpit-man-machine interaction: the Control Display and Management System, the Multi-Function Display and the Cockpit Head Down Display. As such, the aerospace industry is the main customer.

Air Traffic Control
Building on its vast expertise in ATC (Air Traffic Control) solutions, Barco continues to strengthen its leading market position thanks to the successful ISIS flat panel display. The company's investments in R&D have resulted in numerous product innovations in main displays, tower control displays and software solutions.
With the integration of Orthogon's complementary technologies and products, Barco extended its hardware-based ATC portfolio with software components and associated services. This resulted in a more diversified product offering to its customer base.

Textiles - Sensors & Systems
The computer integrated Manufacturing systems division supplies computerized production management systems to both the textiles and plastics processing industries. These products and systems greatly improve the efficiency of the customer's production process as well as the quality of the final products.