At least they still made money. To really get a ground-level feel of the devastation, look at Indonesia and South Korea. Welcome to the new age of diminished expectations. And that minimum will rise more as economic growth continues to pump up sales. The qualifying bar next year will almost certainly fall again.
Economists forecast lean times well into the new millennium.
But that does not necessarily mean Asia's giants will go the way of the dinosaur. Not all of them, anyway. And there are gleams of light in the gloom. Any company that managed to thrive despite the Crisis is almost indestructible. All three are well-managed international companies.