We express our deepest gratitude to our shareholders for their continued understanding and support of our group's business activities.
During this interim consolidated accounting period, although the future economic outlook remains uncertain due to factors such as the continued rise in energy and raw material prices driven by the unstable international situation and the depreciation of the yen, we have seen a gradual recovery in economic activities, supported by the normalization of social activities, the recovery of personal consumption, and an increase in inbound demand.
In our group, in the Fine Chemicals segment, retail industries, which are major clients, experienced strong sales of seasonal products and disaster preparedness goods, driven by high temperatures and an increased awareness of disaster preparedness. However, in the general consumer sales of the Fine Chemicals segment, sales of Car-exterior care products were sluggish, affected by a decrease in car washing opportunities due to the extreme heat and a reactionary decline in shipments of tire and wheel care products, which had been strong in the previous period. Additionally, due to our withdrawal from the sale of other companies’ products to Russia, overall sales of Foreign operations also showed a decline.
In the Porous Materials segments, the semiconductor sector, a major application area, continues to see demand for logic semiconductors and HBM (high-bandwidth memory) due to the rapid global adoption of generative AI. As a result, exports, particularly to countries like South Korea and Taiwan, have remained strong.
Under these circumstances, our group has entered the second year of the 7th Mid-term Management Plan, "Evolve!!," and has been pursuing various initiatives in both sales and development. As a result, while sales for the current interim period were slightly below the previous year's performance, operating profit has progressed ahead of expectations.
Our group will continue to work towards creating new lifestyles that contribute to everyday life, under the management philosophy of "Lifestyle Creation Company."
We sincerely appreciate your continued support and cooperation.
November 2024
SOFT99 corporation
President & CEO
Hideaki Tanaka