Kakaku.com Inc

TSE:2371

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Shonosuke Hata, executive]

Hello. This is Shonosuke Hata from Kakaku.com. Thank you for joining us today. I will now explain the financial results for the first quarter of this fiscal year. First, please see Page 3 of the presentation for our consolidated operating results. In the first quarter, sales were JPY 15,362 million, up 9.6% from the previous year. Operating income was JPY 5,171 million, down 3.8% from the previous year. Operating margin was 33.7%. Income before income taxes was JPY 5,296 million, and net income was JPY 3,651 million. Compared to our full year forecast, progress for revenue was 22.7%. Progress for operating profit was 19.1%. Although revenue increased by 9.6%, operating profit was slightly lower than last year.

Next, please see Page 4 for quarterly trends and breakdown of operating expenses and other expenses. Compared to last year, advertising expenses increased by JPY 410 million, commissions by JPY 400 million, outsourcing expenses by JPY 280 million and personnel expenses by JPY 300 million, for a total increase of about JPY 1.4 billion. As a result, operating profit growth was negative despite positive revenue growth. The next page shows operating results by business. Starting this fiscal year, we are listing Kyujin Box, which was previously included in New Media & Solutions as a separate item. First, Kakaku.com's shopping business was down 13%. The service business was up 3.9%, and advertising was down 30.1%, resulting in a 9.5% decrease in overall revenue from the Kakaku.com business compared to last year.

Next, regarding Tabelog. The restaurant promotion business was up 22.9%. The premium user membership business was up 1.4%, and advertising was down 2.9%, resulting in a 19.2% increase for Tabelog as a whole. Next, Kyujin Box was up 42.1% compared to last year. New Media and Solutions were up 18.4% and Finance was down 12.4%, resulting in an 8.7% increase in the New Media and Solutions and Finance business compared to last year. Next, let me explain the progress of each business in detail.

In the Kakaku.com business, sales in the shopping and advertising businesses declined, while sales in the Services business continued to increase. Next, please see Page 8 regarding the shopping business. Durables was down 7.6% compared to last year, and consumables was down 29.4% compared to last year. Next, please see Page 9 for some topics regarding durables and consumables. New product registrations for digital and home appliances were down 5.2% compared to last year. There are still a few new products, and we are seeing a slight decline compared to last year. The number of new product registrations for PCs was up 21.7% from last year because the number of registrations for one manufacturer increased significantly. Excluding that manufacturer, the number of new product registrations was down 5.9% from last year, indicating that as with home appliances, the number of new products is still low.

There is news that the shortage of semiconductors has been partially resolved and that supply is returning. And while there is such a trend in terms of overall product supply, the level of new products is still lower than last year. The number of organic traffic for consumer goods has not yet recovered from the drop in search engine rankings, declining by 43% from the previous year. On the right side, we have some initiatives for Kakaku.com. In particular, the second item, improvements to the smartphone site might seem a little bit low key, but we are now in the first stages of substantially renewing the smartphone site. We have made modifications such as using tabs to switch search criteria or displaying a search box on the screen at all times.

Next, on Page 10, we have the Kakaku.com service business. The financial domain was plus 12.9%. The telecommunications domain was plus 27.6%. The automotive domain was minus 15.6% and the other domain was minus 21.5% year-over-year, resulting in a slightly positive result overall. As I mentioned at the last financial results briefing, the number of credit cards issued into the number of applications for card loans have continued to increase slightly. In the telecommunications domain, overseas WiFi continues to recover. The automotive business is still sluggish due to the continued impact of supply side issues as is also the case with home appliances and PCs in the shopping business.

Next, Page 11 contains topics for the service business. In the financial domain, we have added a new category for Robo-Advisors, and we will continue to actively pursue new finance-related businesses. On the right side is the graph showing the number of applications for overseas WiFi. Although we have not yet fully reached to the pre-COVID level, we are gradually recovering to 28.5% of results in the first quarter of the fiscal year ended March 2020. Next, on Page 12, we have the advertising business of Kakaku.com, Banner and Tie-in advertising at minus 30.2% compared to last year, continued to be affected by the decline in new product registrations. In particular, ad placements from PC manufacturers declined due to the impact of budget cuts caused by rising manufacturing costs and other factors.

Next, Page 13 shows banner and tie-in advertising sales by advertiser industry. Revenue from ad placements by digital and home appliance manufacturers was down 11.3%, similar to the decline in new products. Automobile manufacturers continued to be affected on the supply side with production cuts and delivery delays and ad placements on Kakaku.com are showing a similar trend to the advertising market for automakers overall. Please see Page 14 for information on our initiatives for Kakaku.com. Like the initiatives I mentioned before, we are working on improving the ranking page on the smartphone site to make it easier to understand and to provide information in a way that is suitable for smartphones. This concludes my explanation of the Kakaku.com business.

Next is the Tabelog business. Page 15 shows sales trends for the entire Tabelog business. Revenue for the first quarter was JPY 6.4 billion, an increase from last year, as well as a slight increase from the last quarter. Next, please see Page 16. In the restaurant promotion business, revenue from the promotion service increased 6.3% from the previous year, and revenue from the online reservation service increased 51.5% from the previous year. Next, Page 17 shows the respective KPIs for the promotion service and to the online reservation service. After the end of the first quarter, we had 45,800 restaurants under contract for the promotion service and 65,700 restaurants for the online reservation service, both of which progressed as planned.

Next, Page 19 shows the number of online reservations. The first quarter was very much affected by the reclassification of COVID to a classified infection in May, resulting in a total of 18.23 million seat reservations for the 3 months of the first quarter. One of Tabelog's initiatives is presented on Page 20. As the pandemic subsides, the number of foreign visitors to Japan is gradually increasing and the average number of overnight stays is also growing. At present, the number of reservations from foreign visitors on Tabelog is very small, but we are working to further promote partnerships with overseas gourmet sites and to encourage foreign visitors to use Tabelog by making it available in multiple languages. This concludes my explanation for the Tabelog business.

Next, please see Page 21 regarding the Kyujin Box business. The number of monthly users increased 6.8% compared to last year and exceeded 9 million for the first time. Revenue also increased 42.1% year-over-year, and sales per user also continued to improve. On the right, you can see UI improvements to the PC site. The idea is that when you click on a job listing, the detailed description is not shown in a different window, but rather in the same screen, which makes it easier for users to open and close the job description. There are very few sites with this kind of UI. But as this improvement increased the conversion rate, we will continue to improve the site's UI.

Next, please see Page 22. This is an overview of the New Media and Solutions and Finance business. The real estate domain was up 7%. The travel and transportation domain was up 30%. Entertainment and hobbies was up 6%, and the finance domain was down 12.4% compared to last year. Next, on Page 23, we have our travel and transportation related businesses. LCL was up 27.3%, Time Design was up 31.8%, 4travel was up 66.4% and icotto was up 20.1% compared to last year, indicating that the travel and transportation domain continued to see an increase in revenue, coupled with the subsidence of the pandemic.

Now on Page 24, we have our other businesses. First, Sumaity is growing relatively well as it has over the last year with an increase of about 7% in both monthly users and sales. In the middle, we have the entertainment and hobbies domain. Revenue for ega.com and gaie increased slightly due in part to better market conditions than last year. WebCG, as in the automotive domain of Kakaku.com's service business, advertising has declined due to delays in car deliveries and production cutbacks. Lastly, Kakaku.com's Insurance experienced a decrease in revenues in the first quarter due to a slight slowdown in demand for life insurance and medical insurance, as well as the impact from shortening of contract periods and effective price increases for fire insurance in October of last year. This concludes my explanation for the progress of each of our businesses.

Next, we have several topics. Please see Page 26 for some of our initiatives using generative AI. On the left, we have plug-ins for ChatGPT, which we released for Tabelog, as well as Kakaku.com and Kyujin Box. In the middle, we have the use of generative AI within our services. Since July 26, 2023, we have made a beta version available to a limited number of Tabelog users. Unlike the plug-in where users ask questions on ChatGPT and the answers are returned from Tabelog to ChatGPT, this new initiative allows users to ask questions within the Tabelog app. And AI is used to give a response within Tabelog. Then on Pages 27 and 28, we have sustainability-related initiatives. We are also increasing disclosure in our annual securities report. But on Page 27, you can see the key issues we have identified for our company to determine materiality. Details will be released as soon as they are prepared. And on Page 28 is our response to climate change. Metrics and targets are disclosed for Scope 1 and Scope 2, respectively. This concludes my brief explanation of our consolidated results for the first quarter.