How much will the first quarter substantiate the FY2027 full-year plan for higher revenue and profit?

FY2026 results were revenue of ¥11,439 million and operating profit of ¥1,179 million. Revenue declined 1.2% year on year, while operating profit increased 4.3%. In contrast, the company’s FY2027 plan calls for revenue of ¥11,880 million and operating profit of ¥1,355 million, representing planned increases of ¥441 million and ¥176 million, respectively. Since the planned 14.9% growth in operating profit is well above the 3.9% revenue growth, it will be important to determine whether profitability improves from Q1.

FY2026 Q1, the basis for comparison, produced revenue of ¥2,505 million and operating profit of ¥152 million, for an operating margin of approximately 6.1%. Since the previous year’s Q1 revenue was ¥2,654 million and operating profit was ¥212 million, a short-term checkpoint for FY2027 Q1 will be whether revenue at least exceeds the FY2026 Q1 level of ¥2,505 million and whether the operating margin exceeds 6.1%. The company has not provided quarterly earnings forecasts, however, so this is a comparison against prior-year results, not against the company’s own plan.

For the nine months of FY2026, revenue was ¥8,190 million and operating profit was ¥756 million, representing progress rates of approximately 70.0% and 62.0%, respectively, against the full-year forecasts. A simple calculation of the difference from the full-year results gives Q4 revenue of ¥3,249 million and operating profit of ¥423 million. The return to operating profit growth for the full year, following year-on-year declines in revenue and profit through the nine-month period, indicates an ability to deliver against the plan, although the possibility remains that the improvement was concentrated in a particular quarter.

For FY2027 Q1, we will examine not only the absolute levels of revenue and operating profit, but also progress against the full-year plan of ¥11,880 million and ¥1,355 million, the operating margin, and whether the company maintains or revises its plan. Order intake and order backlog have not been disclosed at this point, so whether information on orders that could provide an early indication of demand recovery is released will also be important in assessing the credibility of the full-year plan.