This is Sakaue of LY Corporation. Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us at FY2026 Q1 financial results briefing.

Let me explain the summary of the financial results. There are three topics.

It is about consolidated business results. The LY Corporation's gross profit grew, with performance exceeding the internal projections.

More specifically, the consolidated revenue was ¥553.9 billion, up 13.1% year on year. Adjusted EBITDA, ¥154.8 billion, up 23.1% year on year.

Strong growth were achieved. The second point is that the agentized domain agents expanded to 25 domains.

DAU expanded to 12 million. We are seeing the good progress in terms of the shift to AI agent.

The third is tender offer for Kakaku.com, Inc. We aim to create synergies by combining user touch points, products, data, and payment platform of two companies.

Please go to the next slide. This is the agenda that I'd like to follow.

About the Q1 consolidated results. Both revenue and profit made steady progress toward achieving the full-year guidance.

In media and strategic revenue, the progress was below the 25% of the guidance. This is due to the seasonality basically, and we assume that the revenue will concentrate in the second half, we believe that the final results are in line with expectations.

Once again, this is the trend of the overall results. Revenue grew 13.1% year on year.

The speed of the growth has accelerated. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 23.1% year on year, significant growth.

Margin improved to 28%, the major improvement, the level of profitability is increasing. PayPay consolidation expanded the profit, and this has been the case in the past, but in addition, the higher gross profit of LY Corporation contributed to overall profit growth.

This was the major characteristic of Q1 results. Looking at the individual businesses, the media, commerce, and strategic gross profit grew in all segments.

In addition, in media segment, the cost management was successful, and that led to the EBITDA increase of ¥14.8 billion. On the right-hand side, there were newly consolidated subsidiaries in the last fiscal year that offset the negative impact coming from ASKUL, adjusted EBITDA grew as much as 23.1% year on year.

Next page. What we are focused upon is the shift to Agent AI, user navigation enhancement between LINE and Yahoo!

JAPAN, and also additional feature of the long-term memory of the user preference. Those are driving greater everyday usage, and also the Agent AI agent has expanded to 25, and we are improving the usability.

Through those initiatives, the Agent AI user grew to the 12 million DAU. Next page.

This is about the collaboration with 7-Eleven. Last week we made announcement, and once again, LINE Yahoo has over 100 million digital customers, 7-Eleven has about 20 million per day physical customers, and as you can see in the middle, we have LYP Premium, an official account, and mini app, we would like to align them.

For the LYP Premium members, we provide higher rewards rate and also in the coupons that can be utilized in the 7-Eleven stores. We plan to enhance the membership value as well as referrals.

As for the official account and mini app, through the expansion of the digital touch points such as digital membership and mobile order, we'd like to improve the convenient and rewarding shopping experience. Next is by segment.

Looking at the media business, the shift in the revenue mix progressed and the revenue grew steadily by 3.6% year on year. Adjusted EBITDA was 14.2% year on year and achieving the double-digit growth.

The margin increased to 4.2 points and expanded to 41.8%. Now we have a new level of the margin.

This is the analysis of the media business. The portfolio transformation of this segment is progressing, and the search and display ads were down year on year.

However, the account ads continued to show the high growth. Also, LYP Premium, the user number increased, user subscription including the LYP Premium, this is a new perspective, has also grew and contributed to the revenue.

Adjusted EBITDA, with the higher revenue of the account ad and LYP Premium, the gross profit improved. By using AI, the productivity improved, and SG&A expenses was reduced, and the adjusted EBITDA grew by 14%.

Next, the number of the paid accounts has been growing. Total is right now 500,000, and we exceeded that level.

As for the revenue, it's expanding in line with our plan. Next.

As for the mini apps, in Q1, the number has reached 35,000, MAU 22.18 million. Higher than 50% growth continued, it's growing very rapidly.

DX transformation solutions and stores of stores and CRM is another initiative. In June, we began offering restaurant options, a digital transformation service for restaurants, and started to monetize.

The service is off to a strong start. We also plan to launch the service for hair and beauty salons during the second quarter.

Additionally, the CRM options, which enables more advanced management of LINE Official Accounts, was launched in June for a monthly fee of ¥5,000. It supports centralized management of customer information and communication optimized for each user.

Through these monetization enhancements, we aim to achieve sustainable revenue growth of account advertising. Please turn to the next page.

This is on LYP Premium. The number of direct members, excluding free users through mobile phone carrier benefits, has steadily increased to 6.82 million, up 36.8% year on year.

Going forward, we aim to reach 10 million subscribers including new plan users. As part of our new plan offerings, we launched the lower-priced Light Plan Enjoy Pack in July and plan to introduce the LINE MUSIC new plan in the fall or later.

Going forward, we talked about the benefits with 7-Eleven offline benefits, and we intend to further strengthen the benefits and establish the media business as a key driver of earnings. Next page, please.

This is commerce business. Revenue increased by 12.5% year on year, achieving double-digit growth.

Adjusted EBITDA also rose 10.2% year on year, achieving double-digit growth. After ASKUL's operation, we now were able to come back to the profitable level.

The adjusted EBITDA margin improved significantly to 17.3%, a level close to the previous fiscal year. Next page.

This is on commerce business performance. LINE Yahoo's revenue grew 11.2% year over year, excluding the consolidation effects of beenos and LINE MAN, driven by strong performance in shopping and reuse.

Adjusted EBITDA posted double-digit growth driven by revenue growth at LINE Yahoo and the contribution from the consolidation of subsidiaries despite the impact of ASKUL. This is on transaction value.

Starting this fiscal year, the disclosure classification for commerce transaction value has been revised to align with that of the P&L. As a result, transaction value no longer includes media or equity method affiliates, providing a clearer view of each service's growth.

For details, please see page 24 of the supplementary materials. Shopping transaction value, this is mostly Yahoo!

Shopping, grew 9.1% year on year, continuing its growth trend. Reuse transaction value also performed strongly, up 18.4% year on year.

Service transaction value also maintained double-digit growth. Please see next page.

This is on shopping and reuse business. Yahoo!

Shopping posted strong performance with transaction value up 8.6% year on year, driven by the time-limited PayPay Points promotions, the strengthening of product categories such as gourmet food, and the enhancement of AI-powered features. In the reuse business, the entertainment market expanded and measures such as shipping fee refunds and coupon distributions proved successful, driving double-digit percentage growth in transaction value.

Please see next page. This is on strategic businesses.

Revenue grew 34.9% year on year, maintaining strong growth. Adjusted EBITDA also reached ¥35 billion, an increase of nearly ¥14 billion year on year.

Along with the revenue increase, the margin expanded to 26.9%, continuing strong top-line growth and improved profitability. Please see next page.

Revenue maintained strong with the revenue of PayPay consolidated up 28.4% year on year. Other fintech saw significant growth of 81.7% year on year, driven by the impact of the new consolidation of LINE Bank Taiwan and the growth of LINE Financial.

Adjusted EBITDA rose significantly by 64.4% year on year as the substantial increase in revenue offset higher SG&A expenses and other costs. Please see next page.

This is on PayPay consolidated business overview. The number of registered users expanded to over 74 million and GMV maintained strong growth, up 23% year on year, driven by increases in online payment GMV and interest income.

Revenue grew by 27.4% year over year, exceeding the growth rate of GMV, while EBITDA also saw strong growth of 59.1% year over year thanks to high take rate. Furthermore, the acquisition of D&D Financial Life Insurance announced in June will accelerate the offering of comprehensive financial services.

Lastly, we will explain the scheduled tender offer for Kakaku.com. Overview is shown here.

The tender offer price will be determined based on whether Kakaku.com acquires treasury shares from KDDI or not. The total acquisition cost is expected to be approximately ¥690 billion in either case.

This is a joint proposal with Bain Capital and we aim to enhance Kakaku.com's long-term corporate value by combining the strength of both companies. The economic ownership ratio is expected to be 50.1% for Bain Capital and 49.9% for LY Corporation.

Please see next page. When this transaction is completed, we will leverage LINE Yahoo's extensive user touch point, data, and payment infrastructure to drive synergies.

There are four specific points shown here. We will drive user traffic to Kakaku.com's media platform and integrate Kakaku.com with Agent AI and payment experiences, and we aim to deepen and expand DX solutions for the restaurants and HR domain.

This deal is yet to be closed, I will not go into the details. However, when this transaction is finalized, further details will be provided separately.

Please see next page. This concludes the summary of our first quarter financial results.

Thank you very much. Now we'd like to take questions.

Thank you. Okumura speaking.

Can you hear me? Yes.

Thank you. I have two questions, please.

First, about the Kakaku.com TOB, scheduled TOB. Based upon the current conditions, basically it's 4 to 5% yield.

For you, the IRR 10% I think is the standard for you. The difference or the gap, how do you plan to fill that?

What is the strongest conviction for this offer? You mentioned the synergy in page 25, but I'm sure that there are things which are not yet final.

What are your expectations and what would be the impact that you expect from this? If you can elaborate on that, thank you.

Thank you very much, Okumura-san, for your questions. Let me answer first, and then Idezawa-san might make some additional comments.

IRR 10%, the criteria, yes, that's correct. For us, the biggest synergy that we have in our expectation is Tabelog.

Using Tabelog official account area, we want to develop such area. That is the area that we'd like to work on the most.

This is something that we must do. This is the most important domain, we have the highest expectation from that.

In addition, the next priority is Kakaku.com's services, and they have various, for example, product data and word-of-mouth data, and those can be utilized for our Agent AI so that the Agent AI can provide better navigation for the shoppers. The Agent AI can become smarter, so that's how we plan to utilize this.

Yes, that's the answer to your first question.

One follow-up question if I may. The impact on the dividend and also would there be a impact in terms of the buyback?

As of now, the dividend that we announced the increase of the dividend payment, we do not expect any impact on those. The capital allocation for three years basically will not be changed based on the current assumptions.

Thank you. My second question is about the media business and the results and the forecast.

Search ad, I think you mentioned that the downward trend might stop. On page 6, you mentioned the differences, the fluctuations, and the gross profit ¥5.4 billion up, and the gross profit increase is higher than the profit increase.

This is because of the fact that the search is down, the profitability per product, are there any positive impact from it? What is the current status as well as the outlook, if you can comment?

Yes, Sakaue. I'd like to answer to that question.

About the stopping of the decline of the search, yes, that is starting to happen, and that's what we see internally. Search ads, when we look at the efficiency and power of monetization, I think we are seeing the improvements.

Through that, the decline of the revenue is something that we are seeing. As for the gross profit improvement, on page 11, if you refer to that, as you pointed out correctly, the low profit margin is declined and the high-profit product increased.

Due to the improvement of the mix, that led to the higher number. The biggest part was search advertising, as you correctly mentioned.

Yes, thank you. It's product mix, and the profitability of each product hasn't changed?

Yes, we have four now. For each product, the productivity of each product remains the same.

Okay. Thank you very much for your thorough explanation.

That's all.

This is Sato of Jefferies. Can you hear my voice?

Yes, we can.

I have two questions as well. My question is similar to the previous question.

I'm also asking about Kakaku.com, why this is important to you. I think you explained on that topic, I was listening and nodding to the explanation.

Frankly speaking, Tabelog from LY Corporation's perspective is the most attractive asset. Kakaku.com business, I think that you can also do that through using AI.

Why this is most important to you? If the deal with Kakaku.com is unsuccessful, what are you going to do?

That is my first question.

Thank you for the question. Why this is important to us, the strategic significance is that when we look at AI era, the broad touch point with users and AI, three services that Kakaku.com has highly specialized data and customer platforms.

Combining them would be very important. In the era of AI, rather than click-type, conversion and reservation has to be made before we can receive payment from the users and monetize.

I said Tabelog is high priority, and also Kakaku.com, the purchase action can be completed using AI. From that perspective, it is very important asset.

Kyujin Box, the job posting box, once conversion is achieved, then the service can be monetized. Simple posting of the job ads, that will no longer be a valuable service in the era of AI.

These three assets, although I talked about our priority, we believe all three are important. There were a raising of prices, as I have said, 10% of IRR is our financial discipline.

It's possible that there may be further development, but we will continue to look into that. The second question, what happens if this deal fails?

Especially restaurant-related areas and purchase AI agent or procurement AI agent, this is a must-have domain for us. The changes through AI happens and expands in a very speedy manner in the next several months.

In order to expand our market share in this domain, we can change the partners, or using the synergy of SB Group like we did for PayPay, we shall make investment in large amount to start up in an organic manner. That is the backup plan we have.

This is a domain where business environment rapidly changes. Several years later, do we try to acquire Kakaku.com again?

At that time, it will be too late. We believe this time round will be the last opportunity.

If we miss this opportunity, we will change our strategy, including organic development. Backup plan's concept of IRR 10% remains the same, so that is a must-achieve requirement.

Anything?

This is Idezawa speaking. First, in terms of the importance and priority, Kakaku.com has three businesses and it also does incubation.

The characteristic is that they all have high-quality conversion points and they were networked. In the era of AI, AI agent will connect various services.

AI is highly capable, but across Japan, the reservation of restaurants or product information or human talent registration, that is a very difficult area for AI to achieve. If there's a concentration of such a data somewhere and being networked, that will become very important.

This company that we are targeting has very attractive services. That is why we are proposing.

What happens if we cannot buy? The speed is very important at this juncture.

That is the reason why we are proposing that we collaborate and work together. If this fails, we need to consider the backup plan on a speedy manner.

We already have a backup plan, and we will look into that.

My point is that their services, the monetization, charging, and settlement services, how can you attach those so that end-to-end service can be provided? Whether that opportunity is remaining, strengthen that area and convert mini app and develop as LY Corporation service?

Right, if you cannot also acquire the backup plan, then you have other things in mind, right? My second point, overall, the first quarter financial results were fairly good.

Margin improved more than I thought, and adjusted EBITDA is growing in each segment. This momentum, do you think it's going to continue in Q2 and beyond, or you have a tendency to be slow in spending costs in the beginning of the year, cost cutting, cost saving worked quite well in the first quarter, is that the reason for the higher margin?

What about maintaining this momentum from second quarter and onward? As

indicated in the topics, this performance surpassed the internal plan, it was better. The profit was better than our expectation.

In terms of the gross margin, Q2 and onward, in terms of the growth rate, we don't see major risks. As you say, SG&A, we were slow starter in spending, and that is actually true.

For Q1 in commerce business, we plan to do promotion, but we were able to achieve GMV without spending for promotion, so that happened in commerce. In the second quarter, the hometown tax payment scheme, due to the change in that and seasonality, there may be some change in the second quarter.

Media, the mix of the revenue direction-wise will remain the same, and display ad will continue to be tough, but account ad and we have recurring business, we expect to add on gradually. SG&A will start to normalize from the second quarter, the profit growth may not be as high as the first quarter.

Full-year total, the guidance, we have the confidence to surpass the full-year guidance.

I do understand that the high hurdle was there thanks to the hometown tax payment scheme. As much as you can comment, was campaigns or major launch festival or any major event that you are planning in the second quarter that you did not do last year?

Far, no plan of anything new and major. That's all.

Thank you.

This is Munakata of Goldman Sachs. I hope you can hear me.

Yes.

Thank you. The search ads, I have one question on that and also another question on commerce.

About the search ads, in the supplementary information, I was looking at it, and the number of the search is down and the demand is slowing down, and that was offset by the improvement of the part of the products and the stand. Right now, the slowing down of the ad business and the number of search being reduced, I think that's one of the points that in the stock market drawing a lot of question.

Is this within your expectation? I want to check on that.

About the product improvement, I think that the unit price is coming up. What are the items who contributed or which are the initiatives which contributed specifically?

That's my first question.

Yes, let me answer. About the number of search, yes, since last year with AI, the quick response can be given, re-query is not likely to occur.

The total number of the search, I think naturally, will continue to face some difficulties, and this is something that we expected. We ourselves, the response of the AI, the percentage is being increased, the number of the search is not likely to increase, and that's going to continue.

As for the unit price, higher unit price and offsetting the lower search number, yes, what we have as a data, we would use it toward the search, and then by doing so, that led to the higher unit price per click. We trying to offset the lower number of the searches like that.

I see. Thank you very much.

As Q1, I think basically it's in line when you look at the search ads alone.

Yes, that's correct.

My second question is on commerce. The shopping and reuse, the growth rate have been quite steady and strong in my view.

Especially what were the effective ones? In your presentation, you mentioned that AI function, navigation, improvement of the functions, are you getting the good reaction from it?

In September onwards, there will be some change to the opening of the store plan in Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping.

By minimizing the negative impact and to have a smooth operation, what are the initiatives that you plan to have?

Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping, there are many things, but PayPay Points-related, time-limited provision of the points, I think it's been a year and a half already.

For users, I don't know whether that's a good thing, but I think that has been effective in building the ecosystem because the points that we provide can be utilized within the ecosystem. It's more than a year, and it's impacting the GMV in a healthy manner.

What I didn't mention is that the profit of Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping is improving.

The outsourcing, the fees, and so forth, we could improve the efficiency of the cost side, and that was effective in Q1. As for reuse, I think that the entertainment market growing area, and that part, I think that we are providing the sales promotion and other features and so forth.

Especially weak yen in relation to FX, and also the prices are increasing in general. Maybe Yahoo!

JAPAN Shopping be difficult, and maybe the else is setting better, with the rising prices, I think the reuse is doing better than the Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping in general.

As for the revision of the shopping plan, this is something that we already talked about, and there were some impact. Especially the small stores, or the stores with the small revenue, churned, but that did not have any major negative impact.

I think that had the positive impact, for example, having the cleaner search results, and we changed the monetization of billing so that it led to some benefits as well.

Thank you very much. Yahoo!

JAPAN Shopping, they're doing well in containing users. The frequency of use of the users is increasing, but rather the frequency of the usage is increasing.

Is that the better expression?

We have heavy, middle, and other users, and the heavy users or frequent users, I think they make even more frequent purchases in the Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity. I'm Harahata.

I have two questions. First question, Seven & i Holdings partnership.

In the short term and medium term, what kind of impact do you expect to which KPI, LYP Premium or account ad, any expectations in those areas? That is my first question.

Idezawa will answer your question.

The partnership with Seven & i, 7-Eleven, there are two initiatives that we have announced. One is for LYP Premium members.

Basically, digital rewards are provided. Seven & i Holdings with 7-Eleven, we have collaborated.

In stores, in physical stores, coupons can be used, and such a coupon will be added. From that perspective, we can expect the number of members of LYP Premium will likely to increase.

Also official app, mini app will be jointly developed in order to increase the digital touch point. 7-Eleven has 20 million daily customers, and we have 100 million.

We both have maximum user count, and by joining forces, we can enhance the mini app. That is the KPI that we expect to improve, the LINE Official Account and LINE mini app.

We are going to further discuss on other initiatives going forward. As soon as we have concrete plans, we are going to share with you.

Thank you very much. My second question is on media.

The search and display and competitive environment of those areas, and the war in Iran is continuing. What would be the environment in the advertising market?

What are the challenges of your company's advertising media?

The market-related question will be answered by Ikehata, and on AI recommend, I will answer.

Thank you for the question. I am Ikehata.

The advertisers' perception of the market and trend, as much as we know, let me comment. AI and various changes are happening, and advertisers more than before are looking for the return on investment.

They are stricter. In part of the sector, they are becoming more selective in advertising investments.

The global environment is impacting, but we do not believe that that is the major impact for the first quarter of our performance. The advertisers are judging the advertising methods very strictly and judging based on that.

That is the overall industry trend. We are to improve the advertising effectiveness and media space improvement so that we can collaborate with the advertisers to improve their investment return.

Related to AI, compared to other companies, our company have media data, click data, and we're working on utilizing such data to advertising. The text, we have many media that is just with a lot of text.

Even when we use AI, the market itself is tough. That is because there is a shift to video.

The video media, the video inventory is insufficient. That is a structural issue that is remaining.

Text-type of advertising, display ad is improving thanks to the use of AI.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Maeda from SMBC Nikko.

I have two questions. Earlier, the Agent AI, the DAU 12 million DAU, how to interpret this number?

I think that this is a cumulative number with different things added. Is it strong or weak?

How have you monetized based on this? The AI-driven growth is what you talk about, and how should we understand this number of DAU?

This is a strategic question, Idezawa-san will answer.

Yes, first of all, the definition of the number, what we are disclosing right now, 12 million DAU, the Yahoo! Finance Agent AI, the average DUV, and LINE talk room overall average, those two are added together.

As a beginning, I think it's a pretty good number. Our target is 100 million users using Agent AI.

That's what we aim for. In that sense, this is something that we need to grow further.

At the beginning, I think it's pretty good number. As for monetization, in the previous meeting, I think we talked about the direction, and we're currently validating, verifying that.

Specific monetization, we have not yet specifically started, I cannot really say much. We are making preparations for it.

As for the direction, the user subscription is one thing, and for the companies using the official account or mini app, now providing AI functions to those companies, and also AI advertising is another thing. You can buy via agent in ecommerce, then we can get the advertising fee from companies.

We have multiple things that are being validated right now. Thank you.

Thank you. My second question is also about the Kakaku.com.

IRR 10%, is it including synergy or without synergy? Use of the debt, is that something that you can try to achieve?

Depending on the different way of thinking of the view on capital allocation and also the market or the view on the price will change. How to have that leverage with debt, or is that something that you're not thinking about?

Once again, IRR 10%, do you think that you can achieve it without synergy? Sorry to say many things, but if you can talk about that.

We are working on the details, and debt leverage, yes, that is something that we have in our assumptions. As for synergies, there are different patterns, the more likely ones and the not likely ones.

Something that can be achieved easily and including all that, IRR of 10% is what we are thinking about. Use of Agent AI, we are making plans for the Agent AI, but rather looking at the cost side and the more certain ones including the synergy, we think that 10% is our standard.

I see. Thank you very much.

I'm Hoshi from SBI Securities. Thank you for this opportunity.

My first question is on media. My second question is on reuse.

The media revenue is my first question. In the initial guidance, search and display total was flat year on year.

That is the annual forecast. What is the background and outlook of the decline of the revenue of display?

User charging grew by 13% other than LYP. What is growing, and is it sustainable?

On display ad, as of now, in total, we want to keep it at flat. The guidance, it's not revised.

We still have eight months, we will make effort to realize the guidance. For display ad, we will integrate former LINE and former Yahoo advertising platform, and we are preparing for the launch of LINE HOME.

In the first half, we expect things to continue to be tough. In the second half, we are hoping to implement measures to achieve recovery, and that strategy remains the same.

Media, the monetization, charging users, and other growth, in addition to LYP Premium, stamps, those were very good and makes up a large portion, but majority is LYP Premium.

Thank you very much. The first quarter gross margin, the start of the year, you made a good start, and hypothetically, even if your search revenue declines, you can still achieve the guidance, and that is the understanding of the first quarter?

It's up to the second half, but media segment was able to accumulate good profit, and we have in a way savings for that, I think that is achievable.

Thank you very much. My second question is on reuse.

You talked about the growth of entertainment. Is it overseas through beenos or mostly domestic?

What are the items that are selling well? In terms of KPI, the unit price, frequency of transaction, and MAU, what kind of KPI is growing?

Hide will answer your question.

This is Hide. I will answer your question.

The growth in reuse is coming from entertainment. Both domestic and international businesses are growing.

Service-wise, we have Yahoo! Flea Market and Yahoo!

Auctions, both are growing. Entertainment products are growing in both platforms, and the market itself is growing in that area.

KPI-wise, overall, the number of sellers and buyers both are growing, and purchasers and conversion rates, those are also growing. Overall, we are seeing growth.

Among entertainment products, trading cards, that category is growing, and they are high-ticket items, the average prices are also growing. That was my reply.

Thank you very much for the detail.

Thank you very much for taking the time to join us. As a beginning of the fiscal 2026, I think we made a good start.

The full-year guidance, I think especially about the consolidated numbers, we are more confident that we can achieve them. In the shorter term, maybe we can exceed the guidance.

More importantly, the Agent AI user, 100 million users, we would like to make sure that everybody uses it, and we'll be launching the different products to realize that. We'd like to continue to work on that.

I hope that you will give us your support and your comments. Thank you very much for your participation.

With that, I'd like to end the Q1 2026 results briefing. We would like to end that.

Once again, thank you very much for staying until the end. Thank you.