My name is Nakajima from Sysmex. Thank you for your participation today. We would like to go over business results for first three months of fiscal year ending March 31st, 2018. Let's take a look at the first page. Net sales. Financial highlights. Net sales was JPY 61.7 billion. The growth rate was 4.3%. Operating profit was JPY 12.4 billion, 10.4% down. Profit attributable to owners of the parent was JPY 8.2 billion, down 13%. Net sales, despite the impact of large-scale projects in Americas, EMEA, and AP, because of growth in Americas and China, overall sales increased. For operating profit, unrealized worsening cost of ratio because of unrealized profit, higher SG&A expenses in line with business expansion. Profit was down because of such reasons. For first quarter profit was down because of a sales decrease. For foreign exchange and yen depreciation against dollar by JPY 3, JPY 0.2 against EUR.
Foreign exchange impact was JPY 180 million for sales and positive impact for sales, JPY 310 million negative impact for operating profit. Tax rate was 31.9% and 8.6% increase compared with the previous fiscal year. This was due to the estimated amount of tax on future dividends of foreign subsidiaries increased due to foreign exchange impact. Next, the breakdown of net sales and operating profit. Despite the large-scale project in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Australia, overall, the sales increased in all areas except EMEA, and foreign exchange impact was minimal. Overall, JPY 180 million positive impact. In Americas, JPY 380 million positive impact. EMEA, JPY 30 million negative impact. China, JPY 310 million negative impact. AP, JPY 140 million positive impact. Though gross profit increased, thanks to sales increase, profit was down because of worsening cost of sales due to unrealized profit.
SG&A increased due to business expansion, such as direct sales, urinalysis and hemostasis products in France, and transition to direct service in China, and also conversion of Riken Genesis , the valuation gain of JPY 5.30 million from the previous year. Next page, please. This is net sales by geographic region. The year-on-year is shown on the right-hand side. The profit was down in Americas, China, AP, and Japan, EMEA. Sales to external customers include export to IDEXX. Sales by business. Core business increased by 4.7%. Hematology, despite the impact of large-scale project in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Australia in the previous fiscal year, because reagent sales remained strong and also the instrument sales was quite good in the United States, we saw 4.9% increase. For urinalysis, the new product launched in EMEA and China, 36.8% increase for instrument sales. Immunochemistry, because of increase in instruments in China, reagent sales went up. Sales decreased in Siemens. The instrument sales was low, and therefore the revenue was down. For next core business, 11.3% down. FCM business, because of a large-scale project impact from the previous year, the sales was down.
Next page, sales by regions. Starting with Americas, JPY 13.9 billion. Growth rate was 12.2%. Latin America, despite the impact of a large-scale project in Mexico, because of the hematology business being strong in the United States, we are able to achieve sales increase. Operating profit grew substantially, thanks to the impact of higher sales and improved cost of sales ratio due to a rising percentage of sales in areas where we conduct sales directly and reduced SG&A. Local currency base, sales increased by 9.2%. Operating profit increased by 180.4%.
The growth rate by region, U.S. 16.7% increase. Sales increased due to favorable results in the hematology field, stemming from a strategic focus on the West Coast area and increased sales to prominent commercial labs. On the other hand, Central and South America sales fell by 32%, owing to the impact of acquisition of large-scale government tender in Mexico in the first three months of the previous fiscal year, as well as the ongoing effects of economic stagnation in Brazil. Started direct sales of urinalysis products in Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. Acquired several projects. Next page. EMEA sales is JPY 16.8 billion. Growth rate is 3.6% down. Sales were down due to acquisition large-scale tender in the Middle East and Africa in the first three months of the previous fiscal year, as well as sales delays in the U.K. as a result of Brexit.
Operating profit fell because of lower sales and a rise in SG&A expenses, stemming from an increase in sales and service employees. Operating profit was JPY 1.3 billion, down by 13.7%. Local currency basis, sales was down by 3.8%, sales profit down by 13.8%, sales increased by region 5.4% down. In France, even though sales increased due to urinalysis and hemostasis sales, direct sales, the sales was down due to impact of U.K. For Eastern Europe and Russia, 18.6% increase. Middle East, 25.0% down. Africa, 39.5% down. Sales fell in Middle East as a result of tender project in Saudi Arabia and the impact of a large-scale project for Global Fund in Africa in the first three months of the previous fiscal year. Next page. China.
Following the transition to direct service, starting in June, hematology urinalysis, hemostasis reagents sales price was increased, targeting for distributors. On the other hand, service-related cost increased. Currently, direct service is only conducted for some regions. Until the service transition completes to Sysmex, distributors will continue providing service. That is the reason why we are paying service fee to the distributors in the meantime. Sales was JPY 16.1 billion, 11.8% increase, hematology hemostasis instruments sales was down. Because of price increase for urinalysis and reagents, sales increased. The operating profit was JPY 1.8 billion, 134.1% increase. The cost of sales ratio improved because of the intra-group transaction price revision and rising competition ratio of reagent sales. Local currency base, 14% increase. Sales operating profit, 138.7% increase. For hematology, 17.4% increase. The instrument sales was down, the reagent sales increased and overall sales increased.
Hemostasis, 8.2% down. Both the instrument and reagent sales were down. For urinalysis, 55.6% increase. New products sales started and instrument sales significantly improved, so is reagent sales. For immunochemistry, sales increased by 68.3%. The number of instruments increased as well as reagent sales. Please take a look at the next page. The geographic segment information for AP. Sales JPY 5.0 billion, 4.6% increase. Despite the impact of large-scale projects in Australia previous year, the business was transferred from distributors in Taiwan and direct sales started and large-scale project was acquired for India. Operating profit JPY 450 million, 23.3% increase. Reagent sales increased and the gross profit increased due to start of direct sales in Taiwan. By region, Oceania 46.8% down due to the impact of large-scale project from the first quarter previous year.
In Korea and Taiwan, 33.9% increase because of direct sales started in Taiwan, and the sales grew for hematology and hemostasis reagents in Korea. In South Asia, 82.5% increase because large-scale tender acquisitions in India and Bangladesh led to higher sales. Next page. Japan. Both our sales to external customers and intra-area transfers, the sales is JPY 30.7 billion. It grew by 4.5%, and hematology and hemostasis reagents remained strong for Japanese market. Sales grew due to higher exports to group affiliates overseas, such as U.S. and China. Sales operating profit JPY 9.4 billion, 5.7% down because of intra-group transition price revision and because of one of factors in the previous fiscal year due to the conversion of RIKEN GENESIS to subsidiary. Next page. The consolidated earning forecast remained the same.
By the way, if we exclude intra-group transaction price impact, the JPY base for Americas will be 160.5% increase, EMEA 10.7% down, and for China 12.8% increase, for AP 16.5% increase, and Japan 5.2% increase. That will be the operating profit growth for each region, based on the same criteria as last year. Local currency base for Americas, 153.8% increase, EMEA 10.8% down, China 50.1% increase. This concludes my presentation.