Asukanet reports six-month financial results

Funeral business

In this business, although funerals continue to be reduced in size as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, there was an increase in the holding of funerals themselves compared to the same period in the previous year, the company said. Under these conditions, the company reinforced internal sales functions and otherwise improved sales system. The number of new contracts has grown steadily as a result of functional improvements to and expansion of the “tsunagoo” DX service for the funeral industry, as well as other improvements such as strengthening photo processing quality using focus correction tools. As a result, there was a recovery in our primary business areas – processing photos of the deceased, and videos and other funeral production services. This also led to an increase in sales of frames and supplies. Consequently, sales were higher than the same period in the previous year.

In terms of profit and loss, despite the increase of advertising expenses and depreciation expenses, there was an increase in sales. These factors resulted in higher profits compared with the same period in the previous fiscal year.

As a result, 2Q sales were ¥ 1,279,355 thousand (111.1% year-on-year), and 2Q segment income was ¥ 299,775 thousand  (119.7% year-on-year).

Photo book business

This business operates AsukaBook for the professional photography market in Japan, and MyBook for the general Japanese consumer market. We are also engaged in OEM supply of photo albums and photo prints based on photos that were taken with smartphones.

In the professional photographers market, although the primary product of wedding photo albums continues to be severely affected by wedding ceremony delays and other effects from the coronavirus pandemic, weddings of limited size were held, primarily in rural areas, and the market recovered better than expected. In addition, there was steady growth in sales of photo albums for studios, and sales were higher than the same period in the previous fiscal year. In addition, in order to adapt to the pandemic environment, we endeavored to revitalize the market by expanding our online seminars, online sales discussions, and video streaming, and by holding events such as life-size photo contests and maternity photo contests.

The general consumer market continues to face difficult conditions of lower chance and needs of photo book resulting from the effects of voluntary restrictions on activities such as traveling and events due to the coronavirus pandemic. The same trends can be seen in OEM supply as well. Second-quarter sales were ¥1,594,424 thousand  (115.6% year-on-year), and 2Q segment income was ¥247,799 thousand (308.7% year-on-year).

Aerial display business

This business is aiming to create a market through new image and video expressions utilizing aerial imaging technologies. Asukanet is developing, manufacturing, and selling both glass and plastic “ASKA3D plates” that utilize our original technologies to project images in mid-air.

First quarter sales were ¥57,123 thousand (105.3% year-on-year), and 2Q segment loss was ¥170,851 thousand (compared to a loss of 123,145 thousand yen in the period of same quarters of the previous fiscal year).

As results of the above, sales were ¥2,930,849 thousand (113.4% compared to the same quarters of the previous fiscal year). In terms of income, increase in segment income in the photo book business resulted ordinary income was Y117,196 thousand (¥7,313 thousand in loss during the same quarters of the previous fiscal year) and net income was ¥80,148 thousand yen (¥10,459 thousand in loss during the same quarters of the previous fiscal year).