The ratings on Whirlpool continue to reflect its strong brand recognition, global leadership position in the mature and concentrated major appliance industry, and geographic diversity. We believe exposure to deteriorating economic conditions in key markets will continue in the near term. This will hamper the company's ability to meaningfully improve credit measures, even though we believe that Whirlpool continues to maintain a leading market share in several major appliance categories across several different geographic regions. Second-quarter 2009 net sales declined by almost 18% compared with second-quarter 2008. On a constant currency basis, net sales declined by about 10%. The sales decline was primarily due to significant volume declines in North America and Europe. U.S. unit shipments fell by about 14%
