Currency Impacts

To understand the trends in our business, we believe that it is helpful to analyze the impact of changes in the translation of foreign currencies into U.S. Dollars on revenues and expenses. We refer to this analysis as “currency impact” or “the impact from currency.” Revenues and expenses from our developing markets are analyzed at actual exchange rates for all periods presented, since these countries generally have volatile currency and inflationary environments, and our operations in these countries have historically implemented pricing actions to recover the impact of inflation and devaluation. We do not hedge the translation effect of revenues or expenses denominated in currencies where the local currency is the functional currency.

Approximately 50% of our consolidated revenues are derived from operations outside of the United States where the U.S. Dollar is not the functional currency. When compared with the average of the major European currencies and Canadian Dollar on a revenue-weighted basis, the U.S. Dollar was 7% stronger in 2009 and 3% weaker in 2008, each compared to the prior year. As a result, the foreign currency translation impact on revenue was a 3% detriment in 2009 and a 1% benefit in 2008.