■Future outlook

1. Earnings forecast for the fiscal year ending 2024/12

The earnings forecast for the 2024/12 fiscal year for Kubell ＜4448＞ is sales of 8430 million yen (up 30.0% from the previous fiscal year), operating income of 35 million yen (loss of 677 million yen in the previous fiscal year), ordinary profit 32 million yen (loss of 686 million yen), and net loss of 58 million yen (loss of 620 million yen) attributable to parent company shareholders. Further spread of the business chat tool “Chatwork” and active investment in the BPaaS business will be used as growth drivers to achieve strong growth and improved profitability compared to the previous fiscal year. In particular, we aim to expand our customer base by focusing on BPaaS related services such as “chatwork assistants” and “payroll calculation outsourcing,” and it is expected that this will contribute to sales growth. EBITDA is expected to be 761 million yen, and operating profit is expected to achieve a surplus since the fiscal year ending 2020/12. By proceeding with the construction of a system with profit generation in mind, we will continue to balance maintaining a high growth rate and improving profitability. As part of this strategy, we are revising the details provided in the free plan and adding functions to the paid plan, and it is expected that the number of billing IDs will increase as a result. Also, customer expansion in the BPaaS business is thought to have an impact as a fluctuating factor in sales. Note that negative net income attributable to parent company shareholders is due to the accounting group total system.

2. topics

The topics for the 2024/12 fiscal year are as follows.

(1) Revision of earnings forecasts

The company revised its earnings forecast to one fixed value as the 2024/12 fiscal year progressed. Sales are expected to be 8430 million yen, which is within the range announced last time, and this shows 30.0% growth compared to the previous fiscal year. The efficiency of advertising costs and labor costs has progressed, and EBITDA and operating profit are also expected to significantly exceed previous earnings forecasts. Efficient cost management has been successful, and since expectations of improvement in terms of profit have arisen, it can be said that improvements in the company's management efficiency have been steadily reflected.

(2) Revising the free plan and adding features to the paid plan

The company drastically revised the details provided regarding the free plan for the business chat tool “Chatwork” from 2024/8/29. This is a measure aimed at making services easier to use and transferring highly utilized users to paid plans based on the results of analyzing user activity data. This revision can be said to be a strategic move to increase the conversion rate from free users to paid users and strengthen profits. As for the number of billing IDs, temporary cancellations occurred due to price revisions implemented in 2023/7, but now that these have gone round, the net increase has increased drastically. This trend means a stable expansion of the profit base in the future, and it is expected that the company's profitability will further increase. Also, functions that have been highly requested by customers are scheduled to be added sequentially to paid plans, and a “self-addressed list function” and a “reservation transmission function” were implemented in 2024/11. By adding this function, not only does user satisfaction improve, but the value of the service is increased, and more users are encouraged to transition to paid plans. We believe that such a value-up strategy will be an important growth driver for the company, which aims to increase the number of billing IDs and improve ARPU.

(3) Accelerating partnerships with external partners

On 2024/9/25, the group's kubell partner announced that they have concluded an agreement with Fukuoka Financial Group ＜8354＞ regarding customer referrals. According to this agreement, provision of a BPaaS service “Chatwork Assistant” will begin to be provided to customers of Fukuoka Bank Co., Ltd., Kumamoto Bank Co., Ltd., Juhachishinwa Bank Co., Ltd., and FFG Business Consulting Co., Ltd., which are under the umbrella of Fukuoka Financial Group. Efforts to acquire new customers and spread services are expected by strengthening cooperation with external partners in the future and expanding the customer base that can be reached. Also, in October, it was announced that a business partnership agreement was concluded with Atena Co., Ltd., which provides the cloud postal service “ATENA (Athena).” Thus, mail can be received, converted to PDF, and managed/shared on the cloud postal service “atena”, which not only reduces the user's workload, but also shortens the time until work is completed. In addition, in cooperation with the offline office agency service “ATENA office agency” provided by ATENA, the scope of coverage has been expanded to operations such as sending mail and sealing contracts that were difficult to handle with “Chatwork Assistants,” and future service expansion is expected.

(4) Culture Deck Release

The company is focusing on penetrating mission vision values within the company in line with the rapid expansion of scale and development of the BPaaS business. A culture deck “Kubell Compass,” which explains action guidelines, has been released so that employees can embody the mission “make work more enjoyable and creative.” The attitude of aiming for acquisition and retention of excellent human resources is clearly shown by strengthening the sense of unity as an organization while respecting the values of employees.

(Written by FISCO Guest Analyst Ryoji Mogi)