Q1 was on track with the full-year plan, but the focus is on profit accumulation in H1

The first quarter, from April to June 2026, generated revenue of ¥12,803 million, operating profit of ¥1,181 million, ordinary profit of ¥1,190 million and profit attributable to owners of the parent of ¥684 million. Year on year, revenue fell 1.3%, operating profit fell 10.6%, ordinary profit fell 11.1% and net profit fell 20.4%, indicating a larger decline in profit than in the top line. The company, however, described Q1 results as being in line with plan and left its full-year forecasts unchanged.

The full-year forecasts are revenue of ¥51,439 million, operating profit of ¥4,639 million, ordinary profit of ¥4,663 million and net profit of ¥2,772 million. Calculated mechanically, Q1 progress was 24.9% for revenue, 25.5% for operating profit, 25.5% for ordinary profit and 24.7% for net profit. Subtracting Q1 results from the full-year forecasts leaves ¥38,636 million in revenue, ¥3,458 million in operating profit, ¥3,473 million in ordinary profit and ¥2,088 million in net profit to be generated over the remaining 9 months. These are the amounts remaining to achieve the full-year targets and do not mean that the company expects to generate these amounts in H1.

If FY2027-H1 is simply treated as the 50% point of the full year, ¥25,720 million in revenue and ¥2,320 million in operating profit provide reference points. However, the available information does not disclose quarterly seasonality or the company's H1 plan, so these figures cannot be treated as mechanical forecasts. In the H1 results, in addition to whether the full-year forecasts are maintained, cumulative revenue, operating profit and segment figures need to be reviewed to determine how far revenue growth and cost absorption in the human resources services business progressed while the CRO business continued to decline.