The subscription customer base remains weak, making confirmation of a sales recovery the top priority for FY2027-H1

Consolidated net sales in FY2027-Q1 were ¥7,026 million, down ¥90 million, or 1.3%, from ¥7,116 million in the same period of the previous year. The subscription business, the core management category, generated ¥6,089 million, down 5.0% year on year, while the new business areas generated ¥936 million. Although the number of new customers acquired exceeded the year-earlier level, lower purchase frequency among existing customers reduced the total customer count and led to lower sales.

This pattern has not been fully resolved from the previous fiscal year. Consolidated net sales in FY2026 were ¥29,179 million, down 0.9% year on year, while the subscription business generated ¥26,034 million, down 2.9%. The new business areas, meanwhile, had expanded to ¥3,145 million. The company is targeting FY2027 sales of ¥30,265 million, up 3.7% year on year. After deducting Q1 results, this requires ¥23,239 million in sales over the remaining 3 quarters. On a simple equal-quarter allocation, progress at the end of Q1 was 23.2%, slightly below the 25% of the fiscal year elapsed, making a recovery in the first half important even after allowing for seasonality.

The company has described examples of new-customer acquisition through collaborative products with prominent artists and characters, social media advertising and video content. However, the disclosures available for review do not provide specific customer-funnel figures such as the actual cumulative customer count, existing-customer purchase frequency, retention rate or the number of customers returning from inactive status. An increase in new-customer acquisitions will not directly lead to a recovery in subscription sales unless those customers move to repeat purchases, making separate metrics for acquisition through retention necessary.

In FY2027-H1, the first point to confirm is whether subscription sales are continuing to decline year on year or whether the decline has narrowed from Q1’s 5.0%. It will also be important to see whether the company continues to disclose subscription and new-business sales as management categories and can provide trends in cumulative customers, purchase frequency, retention and product categories. As the company has a single reportable segment, it does not disclose official segment profit, but it needs at least supplementary KPIs that allow the relationship between customer numbers and sales to be assessed.