Firstly, we wish to express our deepest sympathies to those affected by the Noto Peninsula Earthquake of 2024, and hope for a quick recovery of the affected areas.
As always, we also express our deepest gratitude to our shareholders for their continued understanding and support of our group's business activities. Thanks to the support of our shareholders, we were able to celebrate our 70th anniversary last Autumn.
At the time of our founding, we started out with furniture polish! Then, later, entered the car care supplies industry as car ownership in Japan grew rapidly. In that growing market, we took our first steps to becoming a comprehensive car care product manufacturer. Currently, we are expanding overseas and into fields other than car care, and we have been able to expand our business breadth over the past 70 years by grouping various operations, such as industrial materials and the services.
With the recovery from restrictions due to COVID-19, we have been able to successfully implement our 7th medium-term business plan: “Evolve!!”
The results and outlook for the Group as a whole have ups and downs, but overall several sections benefitted from the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, while others saw a return to normal after a boost from stay-at-home policies that triggered unusual purchase patterns. Even in the core Fine Chemicals sector, we are feeling a significant shift in the regulatory environment, and are working to adapt accordingly.
Continuing global issues still affect business decisions, such as those regarding inflation, supply chains, etc. This means we must innovate to realise creative solutions in the future, in line with the idea of creating “analogue value”, outlined in the medium-term management plan, with the philosophy of “creating lifestyle and culture”. Despite the “analogue” nature of everyday happiness that we promise our customers, we will also focus on making the most of the latest “digital” technologies to deliver on that promise.
That’s what we mean by “Evolve!!”
We thank you all again, and look forward to your continued support and cooperation.
May 2024
SOFT99 corporation
President & CEO
Hideaki Tanaka