Recruit Holdings Co Ltd

TSE:6098

Q4-2025 Earnings Call

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

Welcome to the Recruit Holdings FY 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This call is simultaneous translation of the original call in Japanese and translation is provided for the convenience of investors only. I'm Mizuho Shen, Manager of IR and PR, and joining me today are Hisayuki Idekoba, Representative Director, President and CEO; and Junichi Arai, Executive Vice President and CFO. First 25 minutes, Deko and Jun will provide a presentation followed by a Q&A session. Please note that today's session, including the Q&A will be posted on our IR website after the event. Now I'll turn the call over to Deko.

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

I'm Deko of Recruit Holdings. Thank you so much for your attendance. I'm impressed by this large turnout. Thank you very much.

So let us share with you our financial results. First of all, at this time event last year, I predicted the hiring demand in the U.S. In May last year, we said that the hiring demand in the U.S. would continue to decline for the next 18 to 24 months, and I used this graph. So in the second half, we thought that the hiring demand in the U.S. will hit the bottom, and we still see it that way. So we anticipate this difficult environment and run our business based on that. And this is what happened.

This is the job ad data in the U.S. around October, December, it showed signs of recovery. But as you know well, in February and March, we still see difficult numbers. So we cannot say that the demand has hit the bottom yet. So this is the situation. But it is close to what we anticipated. So the improvement in the business productivity and the product monetization strategy, mainly in the U.S. were pursued and produced certain amount of results. And therefore, both revenue and adjusted EBITDA were record high.

Now from April and May onward, U.S. hiring demand is expected to continue declining. So the HR Technology U.S. revenue in March and April shows a decline in hiring demand, particularly among small and medium-sized companies. So in the U.S., we expect the job openings to continue declining by around 10% from the current level and run our business based on such assumption. Based on this outlook, we anticipate a slight decrease in revenue. And through continued productivity improvement, we expect a slight increase in adjusted EBITDA for this fiscal year.

For Recruit Group as a whole, we will utilize AI to improve our productivity. So for example, in HR Technology business, around 33% of the new program code in HR technology is already being written by AI. That said, I mentioned we anticipate negative 10% in hiring demand, and there is a good possibility that the drop will be bigger than that. So we will continue to prepare for that as we run our business.

So the economic circumstances remain challenging, but we believe that the cycle of increased hiring demand will definitely inevitably return next fiscal year or the year after that. So as we have done multiple times in the past decades, we are committed to evolving our products and organizational structure to meet that future demand. So I think that is the timing we are in right now.

Today, CFO, Arai san, is also here. So I will keep the detailed figures to a minimum. As I mentioned before, we are now using AI to a great extent in our products. And so I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a video to show that. So please take a look.

[Presentation]

So this is currently being tested in the U.S. and is being developed as we speak. We truly believe that this year will be the year when AI actually changes everyone's lives. We plan to continue providing new products that will make life more convenient for hundreds of millions of users around the world. We have also prepared a video of products that are actually being made and used in Japan. So please take a look.

[Presentation]

So finally, AI has evolved from when it was called Copilot to a point where you can actually take over human tasks. And we are finally getting there, not just receive recommendation, but have AI do tasks, human tasks for us. The largest -- large language models are already utilizing all available online data, as some people say. But Recruit Group possesses large amounts of matching data, proprietary matching data and offline conversational data. So by combining our unique jobs and hiring data with AI, we believe we can make life easier for everyone around the world.

Now our CFO, Jun Arai, will provide details on the consolidated and segment results and guidance. Thank you very much.

[Junichi Arai, executive]

Hello. This is Arai. This is the first face-to-face event in a while. Before COVID, we did this every quarter, but after COVID pandemic, we were slipped to online, if you will. But we can't just keep on doing that. So this time, it is real live face-to-face. Thank you so much. I watched the video earlier. If we had this Rikunabi AI assistant, Gakuchika in Japanese or these tools when I was in college, what would I have done? I would have been able to utilize them.

I don't have any fun video, only numbers. So I hope you won't get bored. I'm sure the content is not boring. So I hope you could bear with me.

So I will discuss FY 2024 full year consolidated results and FY 2025 full year guidance as some analysts thought that we will do this on a quarterly basis. So this is a full year guidance. FY 2024 full year results and the FY 2025 full year outlook by our three segments and updates on measures based on our capital allocation policy. The latest updated measures on capital allocation.

As time is limited and as we want to leave enough time for Q&A session, I will provide a condensed executive summary. And after this presentation, we will have a follow-up meeting at 5:45 with the equity research analysts to discuss further details. All content discussed in each of these presentations will be fully disclosed later on our IR site as part of the earnings call transcript. So please take a look.

As previously mentioned, starting this fiscal year, we have integrated HR technology and HR Solutions, which includes the job advertising business and the placement business of Matching & Solutions. As a result, Matching & Solutions now only consists of Marketing Solutions, including SaaS solutions. And accordingly, the segment name has been changed to Marketing Matching Technologies or MMT.

To facilitate a comparison with our FY 2025 segment outlook, we are presenting FY 2024 pro forma segment financial data, which assumes the integration of these businesses had been in effect from April 1, 2024.

First, regarding the FY 2024 consolidated financial results. Revenue increased by 4.1% to JPY 3,5574 trillion. As a result of continued focus on improving operational efficiency throughout the fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA increased 13.5% and reached a record high of JPY 678.8 billion, exceeding the revised guidance announced in February. And adjusted EBITDA margin, as you may remember, was 19.1%, surpassing the FY 2021 level, which saw significant growth in the performance of the HR Technology segment. Basic EPS increased 20.1% to JPY 271.44, partly due to the effect of share buybacks.

The full year consolidated earnings guidance for FY 2025 disclosed today is based on the following full year assumed exchange rates, JPY 145 per U.S. dollar, JPY 158 per euro and JPY 92 per Australian dollar. For FY 2025, we are assuming that U.S. hiring demand will continue to decline with an expected further decrease of approximately 10% from the current level.

For Japan, our premise is the continuation of the current business environment with no sudden economic downturn. Our consolidated guidance for the full year 2025 is calculated by combining the outlook for each segment and is based on plans to further improve productivity and enhance operational efficiency. Until FY 2024, we presented guidance in a range. However, for FY 2025, with a focus on enhancing the clarity of our disclosures, we are providing a single point guidance that reflects the approximate midpoint of the internal forecast range calculated for each business segment based on assumptions and premises.

As a result, consolidated revenue is expected to be JPY 3.520 trillion, which is roughly flat or equal to a decrease of 1.1% from our FY 2024 actual results. Adjusted EBITDA, as Deko said, due to further productivity improvement is expected to increase by 2.7% to reach JPY 697 billion, reaching another record high and margin is expected to be 19.8%. Basic EPS is expected to increase by 8.7% to JPY 295.0.

I will now move on to the results and outlook by segment, starting with HR Technology. As Deko mentioned earlier, during periods of a challenging business environment as the one we are in right now, we focus on driving operational efficiency and preparing for the next growth phase in job postings. By doing so, we will continue to expand profitability even while facing headwinds. We often receive questions from institutional investors and analysts regarding the midterm outlook for HR Technologies profitability or some sort of guidance.

When the business environment improves, not now, during the recovery phase, we expect both the number of paid job ads, in other words, volume as well as prices per job to rise. This leads to a significant increase in revenue growth. Depending on the extent of revenue growth and the increase in advertising and promotional expenses deemed necessary, we believe there is a strong possibility that we can exceed the previous record high adjusted EBITDA margin of 43.1% achieved in Q2 FY 2021 right after the COVID pandemic by maintaining or even further improving our current cost structure.

We believe, again, there is a strong possibility that we can exceed that level. And in order to do so, we are currently making preparations.

Now going back to the presentation. Segment revenue for FY 2024 increased by 5.4% to USD 7.38 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin was 35.9%. The 2024 pro forma-based segment revenue due to the integration of HR Solutions of Matching & Solutions and assuming this had taken place a year prior, segment revenue was USD 8.99 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin was 33.0%.

In FY 2025, first, I will cover the revenue outlook by region. While the U.S. revenue in the most recent month of April was flat compared to both April last year and March this year. And despite anticipating a further decline in U.S. job postings throughout the year, we expect revenue on a U.S. dollar basis to remain flat year-over-year, supported by ongoing monetization developments.

In Europe and others, which was renamed from Rest of the World, we anticipate an 8.1% increase in revenue on a U.S. dollar basis, driven by continued advancements in monetization. And in Japan, first revenue will be negatively impacted by the shift from gross to net accounting with the migration to Indeed PLUS' PPC model, which deducts agency sales commissions. So there is going to be a negative impact from that. And secondly, we are prioritizing the stable operation of our newly reorganized structure following personnel reassignments to facilitate future growth in the coming years.

That's the decision management has made. So on a pro forma basis, revenue is expected to decline by 2.7% in Japanese yen. However, on a U.S. dollar basis, it is expected to increase by 2.4%. Segment revenue on a U.S. dollar basis is expected to increase by 2.4% or a decrease of 2.8% on a Japanese yen basis.

For segment adjusted EBITDA, it is expected to increase 7.1% on a U.S. dollar basis or an increase of 1.6% on a Japanese yen basis, driven by continued cost control initiatives, resulting in adjusted EBITDA margin improving to 34.5%.

As for staffing, segment revenue for FY 2024 increased and segment adjusted EBITDA margin was 5.8%. For FY 2025, segment revenue is expected to decline by 1.6% due to a 6.8% decrease in Europe, U.S. and Australia. This decrease in Europe, U.S. and Australia is more than what Japan can cover. However, we expect to maintain efficient operations and target a segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.6%.

And lastly, MMT, which consists of only Marketing Solutions, including SaaS solutions, will continue to promote our long-term management strategy, help businesses work smarter, contributing to the expansion of revenue and the reduction of operating expenses for business clients in Japan, particularly small- and medium-sized business clients while enriching the lives of individual users and steadily building an ecosystem in the Japanese market.

We will achieve further business growth of MMT by contributing to the revenue growth of our business clients driven by the evolution of matching technology. We will also increase our revenue through growth-oriented resource allocation and improve profitability through the development of an efficient operating structure. And as a result, in the medium term, we believe the segment adjusted EBITDA margin will improve 10 percentage points to approximately 35.5%.

The starting point of this is FY 2024 pro forma-based revenue. In FY 2024, revenue would have been JPY 539.5 billion, with adjusted EBITDA margin of 25.4% after allocating corporate overhead costs. FY 2024 actual adjusted EBITDA margin before allocating corporate overhead costs of Marketing Solutions in Matching & Solutions was 30.2%, in line with our initial outlook for FY 2024. However, the allocation of these costs resulting from the separation of HR Solutions has been recognized in the pro forma results.

As a result, that costs have been added, resulting in a margin of 25.4%. For FY 2025, we expect a 5.1% increase in revenue driven by growth in the Lifestyle subsegment, including Beauty, Travel, Dining and SaaS solutions with adjusted EBITDA margin improving to 27.5% by driving productivity across the entire segment. The margin improvement is by approximately 2 points to 27.5%.

Regarding our capital allocation measures, I would like to cover this topic last. Looking back at FY 2024, total payout to shareholders, including dividends and share repurchases of JPY 859.1 billion resulted in a total payout ratio of 210.3%. Net cash at the end of the year decreased by about JPY 310 billion or so to JPY 822.7 billion from the end of the last fiscal year.

For FY 2025, the ongoing share repurchase program with an upper limit of JPY 450 billion is progressing. As of April 30, we have already acquired 76% of the upper limit or JPY 340.6 billion. Given the current pace, we expect the program to be completed significantly earlier than initially anticipated. And we have not changed our target announced in May 2024 to reduce net cash to approximately JPY 600 billion over the 2 years ending March 2026.

Going forward, while considering potential strategic M&A opportunities, we will closely monitor changes in the economic and capital market environments and the forecast of our financial position and carefully evaluate the necessity. And if it's deemed necessary, we will also consider carefully the scale and timing of the next share repurchase program. The total per share dividend amount in FY 2025 is expected to be JPY 25.0, which consists of JPY 12.5 for an interim dividend and a year-end dividend of JPY 12.5.

As a global technology company, amidst the turbulent changes in the business environment, we are firmly committed to driving a consistent growth strategy and enhancing operational efficiency. And we respectfully request the understanding and support of all stakeholders, including shareholders and capital market participants. That concludes my presentation.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

Thank you. Now we would like to proceed to the Q&A session.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

[Operator Instructions] To my left please.

[Junko Yamamura, analyst]

JPMorgan Securities. Yamamura is my name. I have one question. So in FY 2024, the economic cycle year 0. So you try to improve the efficiency and monetize the product and you solidly achieved revenue and profit growth. So North American HR Tech plan on the low currency base, it's flat and the number of cases is down. And so you can cover with the price per case.

How do you see the sustainability of this monetization? How far can you go? If you could explain that, we'd appreciate it. And the paid job ad and the premium service expansion or minimum budget introduction, there are various measures you've been taking to come this far. So where are you? How far along are you? And in the medium to long term, which part do you think has the best upside and resiliency to the macro economy? How -- where can we find confidence in you? So if you could touch on the sustainability.

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Great question. So first of all, the base underlying premise is until now, we tended to sell the number of applications. And when the economy goes down, the number of applicants naturally grow. So especially using AI, the higher quality applicants who are suited to that job, who the employers want to hire. We send such qualified job seekers in a selective fashion, to reduce the load of the clients, the employers. In case of large clients in 1 year, 3 million or 4 million applicants [Technical Difficulty] and clients want to narrow this down to maybe 10, 10 very qualified applicants.

So you mentioned premium. Premium is now mainly for the SMEs, small- and medium-sized enterprises who want to hire people with certain particular qualifications. So we use multiple matching criteria and charge for that. Going forward, with AI, as I showed you earlier, AI screening or AI, actual interviews, there are many areas where we can use AI more. We are testing them as we speak. So how we can charge for that is going to be the keys.

And we have the so-called demand side auction. This type of workers, we want to hire. And they have an auction and set the price for the kind of job seekers they want. OCPC optimized CPC or outcome-based, there are such products. So what I want to say here is it's not just us, but person who -- let's say, there are 10 who click this ad. This one is promising. This one is not so promising. How can we build structure the billing of the budget? The advertisement technology is evolving in this area. And so will this person, the job seeker become a very good applicant for this employer? How can we allocate? And how can we charge? The supply and demand, if the supply and demand is accurately understood, then we can price more scientifically.

In other words, how -- not just how many people want to hire this person, but also in this area for this kind of job type, how many people are likely to be qualified? If you can understand that. Am I speaking too much? So like this, this kind of evolution is continuing, will continue. So my key point is the client, the employer side and for the user side, we want them to feel that the value has increased and can be possible with the evolution of AI. And we charge for that. So we should not haste. We should not rush too much. We want our users and clients and us to be convinced that it's good. Then there will be many other ways other than premium to convince our clients and users and bill for that. I'm sorry, maybe I was a bit too long.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

Has it just started? Yes, I believe so. It has just started. So next person who would like to ask a question. To my left in the first row, please.

[Unknown Analyst]

This is Kitagawa of New Specs. HR business was performing quite well. But I would like to ask about other businesses. Marketing Matching Technologies, I see that the organization has undergone significant change. Ushida san is now leading the business. So what is the aim of shifting to this organization? What are your expectations?

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Thank you for the question. In the past, we had the Japan business and the other HR businesses. This was the rough segmentation. But as you know, in Japan, it's half and half. We have HR-related and non-HR-related business accounting for roughly half each. And this time, of course, the main aim is that rather than having investments made separately into different technologies, especially when it comes to AI-related investments, the size, the scale is significant. So we wanted to consolidate the HR-related businesses into one team. And at the same time, for marketing exposure will be higher. We'll have more people paying attention. So of course, this is a pressure on us.

As marketing business, we have to continue to meet the expectations of business clients as well as users that many of them continue to use this service. And through IR activities, we want to communicate this point and to appeal to users and convince them of the value. We believe that's the kind of evolution that we will be able to achieve through this organizational change. So as a whole, you have clients, SMEs, you want to enhance productivity of your business clients. But if you are shifting more to HR business, I fear that this may appear to be a completely different business in nature.

I do not believe that to be true. I do not believe this business is a different business. Our commitment is to bring innovation to the society that has been the foundation of our businesses thus far. The visions may be different, make businesses work smarter, help businesses work smarter. This covers not just the HR area, but the other areas as well. Of course, there are synergies with HR. But if you consider fintech, our approach to fintech is that you have clients, restaurants, beauty salons, hotels or real estate companies, among others. We focus on what services need to be provided to this particular customer, especially when they are struggling to hire people, how can we help them improve their productivity with our services.

So of course, when we consider that fintech is something that is in scope, customers are paying, customers are using the service. So that's at the basis of how we design our business. So it's not just looking at the category or the segmentation. This is fintech, what are we going to do? Rather, we follow our vision in a natural manner. We want to simplify hiring. And also, to our business clients, what services can we offer? So looking at the differences in vision, I think this has been a natural evolution. I hope I answered your question.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

Next question, please, to my right, second row, please.

[Minami Munakata, analyst]

Goldman Sachs Securities, Munakata is my name. So in the earlier question, the corporate client side monetization was referred to. I have a question from the job seeker side. So in the earlier videos, Career Scout and Career Assistant, these services -- this is a potential wish that you had, the needs may be dug out and explored. I think it's that kind of service. So from that perspective, what kind of expectations do you have in the -- further down the road, in an extreme case, people may not -- there may be people who do not want to change jobs now, but they may still use it even if they don't want to change jobs now. So how do you see the potential of exploring such population?

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Dream is expanding. And yes, we talk about such things in our meetings. That said, our priority is, first, the hiring. First, do hiring solidly, thoroughly. So for example, our career adviser, we have many off-line businesses. What kind of device are they giving? Exactly as you've said, this is where I am. This is what I'm facing. This is my family situation. And this is how it's changing, and this is my future of image. So these are all coming in. But what's difficult is outside of that, so I'm in this school and I qualify for this certification. This is what the Recruit has been doing for decades.

First of all, in matching business-related area, we answer what is being asked first and foremost. And this alone has multiple processes. In tests, this is not the answer we want. We've seen such tests, and we see room for accuracy improvement, precision improvement. And what's difficult here is jobs. There are so many different types of jobs. And what you asked is more on the white collar side, I think. So you graduate from a university and find jobs. That's one step. But there are others who need to work this week and need the money right away. There are many workers like that, too.

So the majority in Japan and the U.S., the majority is blue collar workers, users. So first, we have to thoroughly work on the matching part. And then we can broaden the scope and it becomes possible to ask new questions to users. Now if you come to you, indeed, there are two boxes where you enter title and area. That's the only question you are asked and answered. But if it becomes more conversational or more consultational, we receive more broader questions. And what's difficult is our thinking is vertical AI.

We want to develop vertical AI. So sometimes we are asked if the investment becomes very high. Well, what's the weather tomorrow that you can ask OpenAI or Google. But what about business, job? We want to be able to answer job-related questions better than anyone else. So I think we can expand as we move forward. But for now, the priority is we still have a lot to do. Thank you. I hope this answered your question.

Thank you very much for the matching accuracy. I see that there has been a significant improvement, at least that appears to be so from our side, but you mentioned that there still needs to be many things that need to be done. So I'm looking forward to them, right. So as was mentioned before, for example, practicing interviews for a job, that may be a possibility. There are many things that may be possible. Things that are only related to hiring, there are still so many things that we can pursue. So we can further broaden the scope.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

Next question on left-hand side, from the second row from the front.

[Unknown Analyst]

This is Suzuki from Nikkei Shimbun. I have a question. You have been sponsoring and promoting diversity. Mr. Trump is now countering DEI, anti-DEI. Do you think this has any impact on your business? Or are you going to change your policy?

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Thank you very much for the question. At our company, by the end of fiscal 2030, we will continue to work to achieve sustainability goals. Depending on countries and areas, I understand that difficulties are arising. However, so far, we are not seeing any impact on our business performance. So we will continue to work to achieve our sustainability goals.

[Unknown Analyst]

So does that mean your policy will remain unchanged?

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Goals will remain unchanged.

[Unknown Analyst]

And goals, policy, you are not going to introduce any significant change to the policy. I just want to confirm that. And to further strengthen your efforts, are there anything you are working on internally?

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

As I briefly mentioned before, to give you examples, things changes we are seeing in the U.S. Of course, some of them are legal statutory changes. So of course, this requires some change on our side to be compliant, and we are considering some change to that extent. But as a Recruit Holdings as a whole, our sustainability goals are basically there to leverage our business strength in seeking job, of course, we want to help people with disabilities, 30 million people and so on. So this is something we would like to continue to work on and achieve going forward.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

So the very front row to the right, third person, please.

[Yoshitaka Nagao, analyst]

BofA Securities, Nagao is my name. First, a while ago, Indeed PLUS started. So are you feeling traction? How is your reaction to it? And starting April 1, middle class, the placement and high-class executive search now is consolidated to HR Tech. So labor intensive business and HR technology can be multiplied. What kind of new thing is about to be born? And how do you see the value, not just 1 plus 1 is 2, just a simple combination, how do you think this will turn out to be?

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Two or three years ago, my daughter taught me, and it made sense. So my daughter was thinking of the university. She is a science major. So I thought I said maybe computer science, you can make a lot of money with that profession. Then she said, "Dad, you're old. Everything can be done by AI. So I have no plan of doing programming now". And I said, what do you want to do now? AGI, ASI and offline can be connected. Have AGI think and think of raw material or protein or drugs, medicine, these off-line evolution will evolve. That's kind of world we will see. And I said, "Oh, really." So that was 3 years ago.

She went to chemical engineering after that conversation 3 years ago. So I'm conducting AI tests now. Of course, online signal is used as a basis. As an extension of machine learning, AI is used in many cases like that. But along with that, the next evolution is offline and online area where those two converge. This is where the biggest benefit of AI, the biggest return of AI can be seen. What I often think is, for example, Windows, when Windows started. Before Windows, you wrote a code and you had to book the code. But with a few hits, application was launched and we were impressed with that back then.

Large language model, essentially, what is that evolution as the user experience? You call a call center and you press 1 if you want to know the balance. If you lost your card, please press 2. They still do that in call centers. But essentially, if you say, I lost a card, I can't find my card. If you know it will be the next instruction to the machine. Until now, you had to write the programming language or you had to convert numbers like 1 or 2. So in that sense, with large language model, the language that human being speaks becomes the instruction. That is the largest evolution. So in our staffing business and in our placement online and offline, how the AI evolution can be delivered to people's daily lives. I think that is the biggest evolution we will see in the next 2 to 3 years. So we're trying to collaborate more to make that happen. Does this answer your question?

[Yoshitaka Nagao, analyst]

So as a business, I want to have a clear image.

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Oh, so you're saying my answer is not to the point.

[Yoshitaka Nagao, analyst]

So in your earlier presentation, you said from ad model to marketplace, that flow. So Indeed, can complete the placement business online or speed up as an asset. You're combining it with HR Technology SBU. That kind of business change, if I could hear a little more of that, I'd appreciate it.

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

What I often think is what value goes up and how we monetize that. We try to separate this as much as possible. So what you just said, this placement cost per hire an agent, there are many offline human beings. That's the structure. So if we break down the process and the value, what can we replace online to increase value for the users and for the client companies. If we think like that, monetization is we used to do this. And so do this model, it's not like that. We should have a different way of thinking.

So just by combining it and bringing it overseas, not like that, we want a different kind of value to please the customers. So like I said, if the customers are happy, clients are happy, we can monetize one way or another. So first, we want to please the client companies and users. That I think is more important. It's good to make money, but thank you.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

My apologies. We are running out of time. We have received many questions from online participants as well. So I would like to pick one question from the online participants. This is Yamaguchi-san from Asahi Newspaper. In Mr. Idekoba's presentation, you talked about for the U.S. market in the first 10 minutes was impressive. The declining birth rate, aggressive M&A activities, but you are facing these earnings announcements in sincere earnest manner, and you are generating 50% of your revenues from overseas business. And going forward, do you still need to look to overseas in order to attain growth? What is your future vision of Recruit? What will be the overseas ratio, AI? How will that come into play?

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

When I made the presentation on Indeed acquisition at the time, I was in charge of Asia Job Board. I was an Executive Officer in charge of that. What I wanted to discuss back then was when we see technology advancement, we have certain areas, specific areas and others. That's not how technology advancements are made, especially when it comes to AI evolution that we are talking about, we have a protein sequence, the language sequence. They are completely the same for AI. Just because it's a Japanese language or the English language, it makes no difference.

So in that sense, what we need to consider is making sure technology brings about innovation, bringing convenience to people's lives. And as a result of that, of course, we are still at the level of 300 million, 350 million users on a monthly basis. But we want to evolve to a business that has 1 billion, 2 billion users. So if we consider that countries like India, Africa, Southeast Asia, that's a natural evolution into these markets. We don't consider in the reverse way. We do not consider where we can increase our revenues, and that's why we make choices as to which markets we enter. That's not our way of thinking. Thank you very much. So it is now time to finish Q&A session.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

Lastly, Idekoba-san, thank you very much for speaking. But if you could do closing remarks.

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

I'm speaking too much. Can I speak more? Sure. Okay. So as I said at the outset, the global economic situation is so unforeseeable. The U.S. is hard to read. But more than that, the AI evolution that we're seeing right now is once every 20- or 30-year opportunity. So they are good economy, bad economy. But more than that, the key is how much we can let you feel that the life has become so much more convenient in the next 1 year. That is our focus. And this time next year, I hope to speak with you and say, see, you see an improvement, right? I want to say that. Thank you so much for a long time.

[Mizuho Shen, executive]

With that, we will close this earnings call. Thank you very much for your attendance. .

[Hisayuki Idekoba, executive]

Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]