Kakaku.com, Inc. (2371) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. This is Hata from Kakaku.com. Thank you very much for joining us. I will now explain our financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023. Please turn to Page 3 for the consolidated operating results. Looking at the full year results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, revenue was JPY 60.8 billion, up 17.6% from the previous year. Operating income was JPY 23.9 billion, up 25.1% from the previous year. Profit before income taxes were JPY 23.2 billion, and net profit was JPY 16.1 billion. The rightmost column shows the achievement ratio against the forecast, which was 94.3% for revenue and 92.5% for operating profit. If you return to the middle row, the operating profit margin for the full year of the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, was 39.4%, an increase of 2.4 percentage points from the previous year. Revenues and profits by quarters and by business will be explained on later slides. Page 4 shows the quarterly trends. In the fourth quarter, revenue was JPY 16.2 billion, up 17.9% Y-o-Y. Operating profit was JPY 6.02 billion, up 12.2% Y-o-Y. Next, please see the business results by business on Page 5. The breakdown of revenue by business was almost the same as in the third quarter with 31.3% for Kakaku.com, 38.6% for Tabelog and 30.1% for New Media and Solutions and Finance. Next, on Page 6 are the same figures as on Page 5. Starting with the next quarter's financial results, we will be reporting on Kyujin Box's figures separately from New Media and Solutions and Finance. So we have posted the repositioned percentages here. Kyujin Box represents 11.9% of total revenue, while New Media and Solutions and Finance represents 18.2%. Next, on Page 7, is the breakdown of consolidated operating expenses. In the fourth quarter, advertising expenses increased slightly due to T-Point-related expenses in Tabelog as well as due to advertisements for Kyujin Box and Kakaku.com, including video and mass advertising. As for commissions, agency commissions have increased in line with the growth of the Tabelog business. Next, I will report on the details of operating results by business. First of all, for the overall picture, please see Slide 9. Please have a look at the full year figures on the right. Kakaku.com was down 8% year-on-year. Shopping was down 8.9%. Service was down 2.9%, and advertising was down 16%. Tabelog was up 38.5% year-on-year. Restaurant promotion was up 49.1%, Premium user memberships were down 1%, and advertising was up 4.4%. New Media and Solutions and Finance was up 32.1% year-on-year. The New Media and Solutions portion increased by 29.2%. The Finance portion increased by 44%, though this includes a change regarding revenue recognition estimates in the third quarter. The results for Tabelog and New Media and Solutions were almost in line with the internal plan. While the results for Kakaku.com were down 8% year-over-year due to the delayed recovery from the supply shortages. Next, I would like to talk about Kakaku.com for the fourth quarter. Shopping was down 10.3% year-on-year. Service was up 1.3%, and advertising was down 25.5%. A further breakdown of the shopping business of Kakaku.com is shown on Page 11. As in the previous quarter, there was a decline in the number of new product registrations. Also, there was the impact of higher product prices due to higher manufacturing costs. As for consumable goods, the fluctuations in search rankings that occurred in the second quarter continued to have an impact. As a result, durable goods were down 3.1% Y-o-Y. Consumable goods were down 3.3% Y-o-Y. Next, on Page 12, there are some topics around the shopping business. First, the number of new product registrations for durable goods is shown in the upper left graph. Even though consumer electronics increased slightly with 10.6% year-on-year, PCs were down 5.3%. As you can see from the overall trend from the year before last, despite some fluctuations along the way, the trend of declining new product registrations from the second quarter of the fiscal year ended March 2022 is still continuing. As you can see on the right, in the fourth quarter, the amount of organic traffic from search engines for consumer goods declined 37% compared to the previous year. Though it picked up slightly in the third quarter from August and September, it has continued this trend of remaining flat or declining slightly. While we expected this to eventually recover, organic traffic in the fourth quarter was down 37% compared to last year. Next is the Kakaku.com service business, see Slide 13. The personal financial portion of the business was up 19.5%, and telecommunications up 4.5% compared to last year, showing a considerable recovery. On the other hand, automotive still continues to be affected by the supply side, resulting in a decrease of 6%. Next, please refer to Slide 14 for more details on the service business. In the personal finance domain, the number of credit cards issued and the number of applications for credit card loans have increased considerably compared to the previous year. We are making improvements to the mobile site in the card loan, investment and asset management and the credit card categories, and we intend to continue to accelerate improvements to the site. Regarding telecommunications, the figure on the right side of the chart shows that the number of applications for overseas WiFi has been increasing. It recovered to 27.5% of the number of applications in the same period before COVID. Next is the advertising business of Kakaku.com. Please see Slide 15. Banner and tie-in ads were down 25.5% and network ads were down 25% from the previous year. Ad placements by computer manufacturers, in particular, decreased due to the low number of new products to advertise. Please turn to Page 16. Although the situation is still unpredictable, ad placements by consumer electronics manufacturers increased by 7.7% year-on-year, increasing in terms of both the number of ad clients as well as revenue. On the other hand, regarding automotive manufacturers shown here at the bottom, there are still supply side issues, including production cutbacks and delivery delays. This concludes my explanations of the Kakaku.com business. Next, I would like to explain about the Tabelog business. Please turn to Page 17. The overall results for the Tabelog business were as follows: the restaurant promotion business was up 58.8% year-on-year. Premium user memberships were up 5.4%, and the advertising business was down 0.5% compared to the previous year. As a result, we were able to produce numbers that were almost in line with company plans. Next, see Page 18. This is a breakdown of the restaurant promotion business, namely the promotion service and the online reservation service. The results for promotion service were up 25.2% from last year, while the online reservation service was up 149.5%. Next, please see Page 19 for detailed KPIs for the restaurant promotion business, the number of restaurants contracting the promotion service was 45,200 in the fourth quarter, which is a slight increase compared to the second quarter, but a decrease from the third quarter, which is the busiest period for restaurants. We offer a number of pricing plans and ARPU for the fourth quarter was JPY 23,000, which was slightly higher than the third quarter. On the right side, the number of restaurants subscribing to the online reservation service was 64,000 in the fourth quarter. ARPU was JPY 12,300, both are a steady increase. Please move on to Page 20. Here are the stand-alone portions of the figures I explained earlier. In terms of the total number of restaurants subscribing to paid services, the fourth quarter result was 68,200 restaurants, which is an all-time high. Next, for the total number of online reservations through our online reservation service, please see Page 21. The total for fourth quarter was 16.55 million reservations. As we said at the beginning of the fiscal year, our target was between 15 million and 17 million reservations. So we were able to reach the latter half of that range. Though the numbers are seasonally higher in the third quarter, which includes the peak season for restaurants at the end of the year. The results in the fourth quarter were at the same level in part because of the recovery from COVID and the consequent end of mandatory wearing of masks. Next, on Page 22, we have some reference material regarding Tabelog. The left side shows the percentage of online reservations on Tabelog. In the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, the percentage of online reservations was 39%, and the rest were mainly made by telephone. In this fourth quarter, the percentage of online reservations exceeded half at 53%. The right-hand side shows the number of people per online reservation, which averaged 3.15% in the fourth quarter. Although this number has not yet caught up to the pre-COVID level going forward, we expected this number to increase gradually. This concludes my explanation of Tabelog. Moving on to New Media and Solutions and Finance. Page 23 shows the sum of all domains in this segment. For Kyujin Box in the recruitment domain, we had an increase of 29% in the fourth quarter compared to last year and an increase of 34.9% for the full year. For real estate, the fourth quarter saw an increase of 15.6%, while the full year saw an increase of 10.3%. Travel and transportation-related services saw a fourth quarter increase of 64.5% compared to the previous year and an increase of 76.4% for the full year. For hobbies and entertainment, the fourth quarter saw a decrease of 5.5% and the full year saw a decrease of 8.3% and. Regarding Kakaku.com, insurance in the finance domain, the fourth quarter saw an increase of 7.6%. For the full year, including the third quarter figures, the result was an increase of 44%. Next, on Slide 24, I will explain about Kyujin Box. Revenue was almost in line with the company's estimate, up 29% compared to last year. The average number of monthly users for the fourth quarter of this fiscal year was 6.4% higher than the previous year. Then on the right side, though we have not disclosed this much in the past, you can see the current user demographics of Kyujin Box uses by age, employment type and region. Then next, on Page 25, we have travel and transportation. In the area of travel and transportation, the recovery from the pandemic has been strong. The bus travel-related services of LCL were up 64.1% year-on-year. Time Design with its dynamic packaged service was up 59.6%. 4travel was up 123.5% compared to last year. Domestic travel has been quite active due in part to the recovery from the pandemic. For Time Design, in particular, the number of users has increased to 112.7% compared to the previous year. In terms of contracts, the number of hotels that have implemented the dynamic package service have increased by 5.8% compared to the previous year, and our sales efforts are also progressing well. As for Time Design's global dynamic package solution, the number of users in the fourth quarter was still at 20% of the pre-pandemic level, but a further recovery is expected in the future, sales efforts here have also been progressing well even during the pandemic with the number of facilities introducing the services increasing by 21.8% compared to last year. Next, on Page 26, let's first look at Sumaity, Revenue is increasing steadily, up 15.6% compared to last year. The number of users for this quarter was also up 4.5%. We managed to grow the business at about the same level as last year and the year before last. Next, on the right side, is entertainment and hobbies. eiga.com was up 0.4% year-on-year. gaie was down 8.3%, and Kinarino was down 1.5%. webCG was down 14.6% from the previous year. It was particularly affected by a decrease in automobile advertisements due to factors such as delays in car deliveries and production cutbacks and revenue was almost unchanged compared to last year and the year before last. Finally, we have Kakaku.com Insurance. Third quarter figures are extremely high due to a change in revenue recognition estimates. The fourth quarter figures are after this change. This is an increase of 7.6% compared to last year. So the slight upward trend is continuing. This concludes my explanation and report on the fourth quarter and full year figures as well as some KPIs. Next, I would like to introduce some of our future initiatives. First of all, on Page 29, regarding Kakaku.com, on the left side, you can see that we are developing next-generation businesses for e-commerce business operators jointly with the Digital Garage group. We have not yet announced the details of this project, but we will develop and deploy technologies such as password less authentication and one click payment in collaboration with Digital Garage. We have already agreed to establish a joint venture for the purpose of planning this business. On the right side is our initiative to further enhance information and services on our website that are useful for environmental conservation. We have been reporting on these efforts since last year and intend to make further efforts in this area, we would like to further contribute to environmental conservation as a company and as a site by helping users choose products with less environmental impact used secondhand products and use products as long as possible. Next, on Page 30, we have Tabelog. The picture on the left is the same as the one we have been using for some time. But in addition to measures for users, we would like to further support the DX of restaurants. This includes Tabelog order, Tabelog Note, a reservation ledger and Tabelog Shiire, a procurement service. Some target KPIs are explained in the table on the right, our plan for the current fiscal year through March is to increase the number of restaurants contracted for the promotion service to 48,000, the number of restaurants contracted for the online reservation service to 70,000 and the total number of online reservations for the quarter to reach approximately 22 million. In addition, we would like to increase the MAU of the app from 7.45 million as of last March 2023 to 10 million by the end of this fiscal year. Now to Page 31. This is something already covered in the press release, but we have released a ChatGPT plug-in that allows users of ChatGPT to search for available seats at restaurants that can be reserved online through Tabelog. As shown in the 3 bullet points on the left side, it provides up-to-date table availability information by linking ChatGPT with the online reservation inventory of restaurants listed on Tabelog. By giving ChatGPT a desired area, cuisine, reservation date-and-time and party size, search results from Tabelog will be displayed in ChatGPT. In addition, a direct link from these search results will take you immediately to Tabelog to make an online reservation. The items you enter in this search will be transferred to the specified page in Tabelog, allowing you to make reservations without much stress. The right side shows what search results on ChatGPT might look like, up to 5 restaurants that can be reserved online are displayed Including information such as the restaurant names, their Tabelog scores, area, genre, a link to the reservation page and some images. Next, on Page 32, we have Kyujin Box. As we have said before, we would like to achieve a 30% growth in revenue this year compared to last year. Next, Page 33. Initiatives such as Tabelog order, the ChatGPT plug-in I just introduced and also our DX services for e-commerce sites and retailers, for which we have just agreed to establish a joint venture, are summarized here. In collaboration with Digital Garage, we are planning to develop next-generation technologies in the era of Generative AI and Web3 as well as fintech essential for restaurants and retail services. In the restaurant, fintech and DX business, following on from Tabelog order, we have started a credit card-based bill payment service that utilizes Tabelog's procurement service, and we will continue to gradually develop our fintech services for our restaurants. Secondly, mainly in the shopping business of Kakaku.com, we are jointly developing and deploying next-generation solutions for e-commerce businesses. We would like to help revitalize retailers and e-commerce operators with a smart e-commerce solution, applying next-generation technologies such as password less authentication and one click payment. Thirdly, we are currently conducting joint research and development of next-generation technologies with Digital Garage through, among other things, the sponsorship of DG Lab, we have just released the ChatGPT plug-in, and we would like to jointly develop this kind of cutting-edge technology, not just for Tabelog but for all our services. Page 34 is a summary of future business policies. We have stated in the past that our goal was increasing the sales ratio of New Media and Solutions and Finance to 20% or more, and we have practically achieved that goal. The ratio for Kyujin box is about 11%, and that of other services is 18%. Added together, they make up almost 30% of revenue by further expanding our portfolio and promoting the growth of new businesses, we are aiming for a sales composition of 20% for Kyujin Box and 20% from other services in the New Media and Solutions and Finance over the medium to long-term, and we intend to select and focus our resources accordingly. Next, Page 36 provides a slightly more detailed description of our earnings forecast. Overall, as stated in the consolidated financial results, we have forecast revenue of JPY 67.7 billion, operating profit of JPY 27.1 billion and an operating profit margin of 40%. On the right-hand side is the breakdown by business. For Kakaku.com, we are projecting an increase of around 5%. And for Tabelog, around 20%. More accurately, the internal estimate is set around 17%. As for Kyujin Box, we again expect an increase in the 30% range for this fiscal year. Then there is New Media and Solutions and Finance with an increase of 5%. However, if we exclude the impact from the change in revenue recognition estimates for Kakaku.com Insurance in the third quarter of the previous year, we expect growth of about 11% to 12%. The remainder of this document is reference material, so we hope you will take a look at it when you have the time. This concludes my explanation of our financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023. Thank you.