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Our success is no accident. Instead, it is a direct result of the strategy we have pursued for many years. Central to our strategy are focus and discipline. We do not stray from our mission of providing consumers with the best supplemental insurance value in the marketplace. To fulfill that mission, we identify consumer needs and develop affordable products to meet those needs. We create marketing initiatives to help our growing sales force sell our products. And when a customer becomes a claimant, we honor our commitments by paying claims quickly and fairly. Keeping the promises we make to our customers is the most important aspect of our business. And of that, we remind ourselves daily.
Despite economic weakness in Japan and the United States, our insurance operations in those markets flourished last year. Our greatest challenge in 2002 was to improve Japan's new sales, which were disappointing in 2001. Not only did we produce a quick turnaround in sales, our new sales results in Japan significantly exceeded our expectations throughout the year. In the United States, we worked hard to build on our momentum and extend our recent history of extraordinary sales gains. Although sales comparisons have become increasingly more difficult, AFLAC U.S. generated better-than-expected sales in 2002 and surpassed an important milestone by producing more than $1 billion in total new annualized premium sales. And in both markets, our financial performance met or exceeded our expectations, leading to another record year. Below are some highlights from 2002.
Excluding the effect of foreign currency translation, operating earnings per diluted share increased 17.9%, which exceeded our specific objective of 15% growth for the year.
Operating return on average shareholders' equity was 21.9% for the year.
We purchased 12.1 million shares of our stock during 2002.
Our board of directors increased the quarterly cash dividend by 20.0% in 2002, marking the 20th consecutive year we have increased the dividend.
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