TOPPAN Holdings Inc. (7911) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

I'm Kurobe, the Chief Financial Officer. Thank you very much for joining us today for fiscal '25 first quarter results briefing despite your very busy schedule. Now let me proceed with the explanation of the financial results. Please turn to Page 2. This is the Q1 consolidated results. Net sales was JPY 397.5 billion, 1.3% down year-over-year. Excluding the impact of acquisition costs and other items, non-GAAP operating profit increased by 15.3% to JPY 16.1 billion. Non-GAAP profit attributable to the owner of the parent, excluding special gains such as from the sale of securities, increased by 16.8% to JPY 9.3 billion, resulting in overall performance largely in line with the forecast. Key points are shown on the right side. Information & Communication and Living & Industry reported increased revenue and profit, while Electronics reported a decreased revenue and profit. I'll provide details of segment performance later. Please note that starting this fiscal year, we have changed the foreign exchange rate processing method from closing day rate to the average rate for the period. We have retroactively adjusted the prior year figures. Unless otherwise stated, the prior year figures in the following pages reflect these adjustments. Please turn to Page 3. I will now explain the changes in operating profit versus prior year. FX impact of JPY 1.7 billion and infrastructure development costs of JPY 0.3 billion affected the numbers negatively. In Growth business, Erhoeht-X contributed JPY 0.1 billion. Business SX and Overseas Living & Industry contributed JPY 3.3 billion. The semiconductors had a negative impact of JPY 1.4 billion. Regarding existing businesses, the structural reforms implemented last fiscal year had positive impact of JPY 2.1 billion. As a result, GAAP operating profit was JPY 13.5 billion, and non-GAAP operating profit, adjusted for the impact of goodwill-related acquisitions, was JPY 16.1 billion. Next, I would like to explain the status of each segment. Please refer to Page 4. Please note that the changes in operating profit for the subsegments discussed hereafter do not reflect changes in foreign exchange processing methods. Information & Communications segment reported net sales of JPY 210.2 billion, up 2.3% and non-GAAP operating profit of JPY 6.8 billion, up 53.8% year-on-year. Overall, we achieved a forecast with an increase in profit driven by growth of new business and the impact of structural reforms in existing businesses. Going into subsegments, Digital business sales increased due to growth in overseas secure government ID business, consolidation of HID and addition of new marketing DX projects. However, while profit was up for overseas secure, it was down for domestic secure business due to the absence of one-time projects from the previous year and a decline of digital textbooks resulting in an overall decrease in profit. BPO sales and profit were both down despite sales in growth in financial sector due to lingering impact of large-scale projects from the previous year. Secure Media saw increased revenue and profit, thanks to rising demand for IC cards and the strong performance in overseas finance printing. Communication Media saw a decrease in sales due to market contraction. Profits increased, thanks to the effects of structural reforms. Next page summarizes Erhoeht-X first quarter results for reference. Overall, sales increased driven by growth in Marketing DX and Secure business, while profit increased only slightly due to lower profit in Hybrid BPO. Q1 results were largely in line with the forecast. We will continue to focus on expanding sales to recover upfront costs and achieve our full year forecast. Moving on to the Living & Industry segment. Please turn to Page 6. Sales in the Living & Industry segment remained nearly flat year-over-year at JPY 136.2 billion, while non-GAAP operating profit increased by 25.1% to JPY 10 billion. Overall, the segment saw significant profit growth, primarily overseas, driven by expanded demand for SX packaging and the impact of structural reforms. In the subsegments, demand for packaging expanded both in Japan and overseas due to increased demand for SX packaging and demand for barrier films expanded in response to stricter recycling regulations in Europe. Profits also increased by double digits, driven by growth in high value-added SX packaging. Decor Materials sales was flat. While residential demand in Europe has not fully recovered, we captured domestic demand for renovation and overseas demand for decorative sheets for furniture. Profits increased both domestically and overseas with contributions from overseas structural reform. Moving on to Electronics segment. Please turn to Page 7. Sales in the Electronics segment dropped significantly by 18.2% year-over-year to JPY 56.6 billion due to structural reforms in the TFT business. Non-GAAP operating profit decreased 27.2% to JPY 9.1 billion, but overall results were in line with our forecast. This includes approximately JPY 1.6 billion negative impact of foreign exchange. In the subsegments, semiconductors saw a decrease in both sales and profit. FC-BGA profitability declined due to changes in product mix and stronger yen. Certification for AI accelerators was delayed in some cases, and sales of high-end products were sluggish. On the other hand, we captured strong consumer demand, which resulted in the changes in product mix. We are accelerating efforts to obtain mass production approval for related products and prepare to launch a new line in order to capture the growing demand for AI servers in the second half of this year. Photomask performance was strong, driven by demand for leading edge in Asia and Europe. Display sales was down due to structural reforms in the TFT business, and profits declined due to inventory adjustments for anti-reflection films for large screen TVs. Please turn to Page 8. I will now explain the main points of our Q1 income statement. Gross profit margin improved by 1 percentage point year-over-year to 24%, driven by growth in high value-added products such as SX packages and the impact of structural reforms. SG&A ratio rose by 0.4 percentage points, mainly due to continued high levels of payrolls and freight costs. Nonoperating income decreased from JPY 5.3 billion to JPY 1.4 billion year-over-year. The main factors include increased interest expenses due to higher borrowings and smaller foreign exchange gains. Please turn to Page 9. This is the forecast for the current fiscal year that was presented at our May earnings call. No revisions have been made at this time. Exchange rate assumptions of JPY 140 per dollar remains unchanged. Prior full year results shown on this slide have not yet reflected the new FX processing method. The new method will be reflected in the midyear earnings call. We will continue to advance the transformation of our business portfolio through the expansion of growth business and structural reforms in existing businesses, aiming to achieve our forecast and meet your expectations. We kindly ask for your continued support. This concludes my presentation.