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quarter since initiating our share repurchase program in 1994. In 2004 we purchased more than 10 million shares, bringing the total number of shares we have bought to more than 177 million since the program's inception. We also increased the cash dividend in 2004, marking the 22nd consecutive year of cash dividend increases. Cash dividends paid per share in 2004 were 26.7% higher than in 2003.
Aflac Japan, which represents the majority of the company's earnings, had a financially strong year in 2004. Most important, premium income and revenues exceeded our expectations, benefiting from better persistency of our business. Aflac Japan's benefit ratio continued to improve as we expected, producing higher margins and very strong earnings growth in 2004.
Although new sales picked up during the fourth quarter, they did not meet our expectations for the year. We began 2004 knowing that we would have to overcome obstacles to achieve our new sales targets. One obstacle was the expected decline in conversions from our older Rider MAX term product to the newer, whole-life version. Another obstacle we anticipated was declining sales of our cancer life product through Dai-ichi Life. Those impediments became more difficult to overcome as the year progressed.
We also anticipated that the continued strong growth of our medical product would be sufficient to overcome those obstacles. However, after posting very strong sales gains in the first quarter of the year, medical sales began to slow. Although many new products from competitors have surfaced, we have not seen any product that represents a better value to the customer. According to independent research, Aflac remains the most preferred company for medical insurance in Japan. Aflac Japan continued to be the number one seller of medical insurance in the life insurance industry in terms of policy sales throughout the year. And we aggressively promoted our leading market position through television advertising toward the end of 2004. We believe the effectiveness of the ad is one reason medical insurance sales improved in the final quarter of the year.
To stand out in a more crowded market, we knew we had to re-assert our position as the product innovator. To that end, we developed new medical products in 2004 that we believe will appeal to consumers who want to purchase more than the basic coverage that our original medical product provides. We began introducing our new
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