President's Message

Our group worked collectively toward achieving the goals of the "Medium-term Management Plan 2025," which has reached its final year.

Regarding our performance during the fiscal period, although there were reductions in sales prices linked to procurement costs for energy, we achieved increased revenue due to the growth in the number of group customers and the expansion of the corporate stock business in our information and telecommunications division. As a result, net sales totaled 244.8 billion yen (an increase of 0.6% year-on-year), marking the ninth consecutive year of revenue growth and a new record high.

In terms of profit, the increase in the number of group customers, profit growth in corporate information and telecommunications business as well as construction equipment and real estate business, combined with efforts to reduce customer acquisition costs and control various expenses, resulted in operating profit of 18.7 billion yen (an increase of 11.0% year-on-year). For the third consecutive year, we achieved profits growth in all categories, setting new record highs.

Consequently, we increased the year-end dividend by 2 yen, from the initial forecast of 17 yen to 19 yen, resulting in an annual dividend of 36 yen.

As for the customer base, which is the source of our group's revenue, active customer acquisition efforts toward achieving the Medium-term Management Plan led to an increase of 48,000 from the previous year-end, reaching a total of 3,471,000 customers.

In the energy business centered on gas, as the domestic market matures, we are actively pursuing the expansion of our sales areas and M&A in order to cultivate new demand. During the fiscal period, we focused on acquiring new customers and reviewed customer acquisition costs. We will continue to work on expanding our areas, mainly in the Chukyo and Western Japan regions.

In the consumer-focused information and telecommunications business, we promoted customer acquisition through collaborations with major mobile carriers. In the corporate business segment, cloud services and network services saw steady progress. To support DX (Digital Transformation) initiatives for various industries in the Kyushu area—including connection to cloud and AI services—in April 2025 we will extend our group-owned telecommunications infrastructure to the Kyushu area, expanding our service area from Northern Kanto to Kyushu. Going forward, we will utilize this network to further expand our corporate information and telecommunications business.

In the CATV business, as a community-based operator, we focused on providing local information and producing programs, striving to enhance attractive content, and actively conducted sales activities to increase the number of customers.

In the building equipment and real estate business, orders for equipment construction and real estate sales progressed smoothly.

In the Aqua business, we worked to further expand our customer base through event sales at large commercial facilities, web-based acquisition, telemarketing, and other efforts. As a result, customer acquisition for the water supply-type purified water server service "Shizukulia" progressed smoothly, leading to an increase in customer numbers.

Our group provides comprehensive lifestyle services for our customers. In addition to firmly supporting the foundation of our customers’ lives, we aim to make greater contributions to solving regional, societal, and even global issues in Japan, striving to become a "social value creation company."
In this context, we have reviewed our materiality (key issues) and newly formulated the "Four Pillars of Sustainability Strategy." These four pillars are: "Contributing to joyful and fulfilling lifestyles," "Boldly challenging human resources and organizations," "Promoting environmentally conscious business activities," and "Strengthening governance." For each of these four pillars, we have set our vision for 2030 and will actively work towards realizing them.

In the "Medium-term Management Plan 2028," we emphasize ROE as an indicator driving both business growth and the expansion of shareholder value, setting a target of 15% ROE for fiscal year 2030. To achieve this target, we aim for accelerated growth by implementing both our business growth strategy and our financial and capital strategies.

As our business growth strategy, we have adopted the “Triple Accel Strategy.” For business expansion, simultaneous growth in three directions is essential: "Area Expansion," "Account Increase" (such as increasing the number of customers or accounts), and "ARPU Improvement" (enhancing the service menu). As each of these directions begins with the letter "A," we have named it the "Triple Accel Strategy," emphasizing accelerated growth in all three areas.
Based on the “Triple Accel Strategy,” we will achieve both the expansion of our business foundation and the strengthening of our earning power, leading to sustainable growth.

On the financial and capital side, we will pursue improved capital efficiency and an optimal capital structure.

We respectfully request our shareholders' continued and even greater support moving forward.