FY2027 Q1 is broadly in line with the full-year forecast, but H1 will be the point at which the sustainability of growth is tested.

Revenue for the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2027 was ¥16,502 million, up 9.1% year on year, while operating profit was ¥1,343 million, up 21.8%. The operating margin was approximately 8.1%, up approximately 0.8 percentage points from approximately 7.3% in the same quarter of the previous year. Operating profit grew faster than revenue, indicating that profitability improvement initiatives, in addition to higher revenue, pushed up profit.

The full-year forecasts are revenue of ¥66,000 million, operating profit of ¥5,100 million, ordinary profit of ¥5,900 million and profit attributable to owners of the parent of ¥3,850 million. They had not been revised as of the first quarter. Simple progress rates were 25.0% for revenue, 26.3% for operating profit, 27.8% for ordinary profit and 29.1% for net profit. The first quarter alone does not provide a basis for concluding that the full-year targets will be achieved, but at least on the profit side, progress is slightly ahead of revenue.

The mechanical 50% first-half progress benchmarks are revenue of ¥33,000 million, operating profit of ¥2,550 million, ordinary profit of ¥2,950 million and net profit of ¥1,925 million. These are not company forecasts that reflect seasonality, but simply benchmarks obtained by halving the full-year forecasts. Accordingly, at the next results announcement it will be necessary to check not only whether revenue reaches around ¥33,000 million, but also whether operating profit in the Logistics Services segment increases from ¥1,426 million in the first quarter.

Profit attributable to owners of the parent rose 51.3% year on year to ¥1,119 million, but the first quarter also included a ¥32 million gain on the sale of investment securities and a ¥14 million loss on the disposal and sale of fixed assets. Neither was a large item relative to operating profit of ¥1,343 million, but the underlying growth excluding non-operating and extraordinary items needs to be assessed separately from the growth in net profit.

The company did not prepare a quarterly consolidated statement of cash flows for the first quarter, and operating, investing and financing cash-flow results were not disclosed. In the first-half results, key points will include not only whether the earnings forecasts remain unchanged, but also cumulative operating-profit progress, the drivers of segment-by-segment changes, and cash-generation capacity.