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• Overall Strategy and Long-Term Vision: Exio Group's 2030 vision is "Engineering for Fusion: Connecting Engineering to All Futures", with a target to achieve an equal 1/3 revenue split across the three business segments to build a less cyclical, more balanced portfolio that reduces historical dependence on the communication carrier business. The company's corporate purpose is "Create the future 'normal' with the power of connection".
• Communication Carrier Business Initiatives: Optimizing operations through subsidiary consolidation, site rationalization, group-wide procurement standardization, and leveraging existing technical skills to expand into adjacent growth areas including data center and renewable energy projects. It also uses offshore resourcing to improve cost efficiency.
• Urban Infrastructure (Data Center) Initiatives: Driven by booming demand from generative AI growth and 4 trillion yen of planned investment by U.S. hyperscalers in Japan. The company is one of the top data center builders in Japan, with strong client relationships with major hyperscalers. It recently completed Japan's largest new water-cooled data center to accommodate the higher heat output of AI GPU clusters, and is building in-house technical expertise in water cooling technology to serve future client demand. It is expanding its scope from interior fit-out work to full building construction, installation, and operation and maintenance to build a full one-stop service capability.
• System Solution Business Initiatives: In the education DX space, it is targeting growth from the "Next GIGA" program, which covers replacement of terminals deployed in the first GIGA school initiative, plus new projects including cloud migration of school administrative systems and enhanced cybersecurity services, to build recurring revenue. It launched a dedicated Generative AI Promotion Center (AI CoE) to drive AI adoption: internally, AI is already widely used for administrative tasks like meeting minute creation and software development support; externally, it already delivers AI consulting and AI agent solutions to clients. Its global business has three core segments (managed services, ICT infrastructure, M&E engineering) and is focused on building stable profitability through portfolio optimization, with the Indonesian indoor base station sharing business dhost already a leading profitable player in the market.
• Corporate Development and Capital Allocation: Continues active M&A, completing two acquisitions in the 2025 fiscal year (SAT, a third-party IT hardware maintenance firm, and Olivier, a financial system integration specialist) to complement its system solution service portfolio, and launched a dedicated Alliance and M&A department to accelerate post-merger integration and improve investment returns. It allocates cash flow to growth investments (R&D, DX, talent development, M&A) and shareholder returns. It uses a 4% DOE dividend policy, plans a 66 yen per share dividend for 2025 fiscal year (14th consecutive year of dividend increases), and continues opportunistic share buybacks. It completed a 1:2 stock split in 2024 to improve liquidity and expand its investor base.

• 2025 fiscal year (current fiscal year) guidance: The company targets total revenue of 710 billion yen and operating profit of 470 billion yen, which would meet the original mid-term plan's profit target. After achieving the original mid-term sales target of 630 billion yen one year early in 2024, the full original mid-term plan targets (operating profit 470 billion yen, ROE ≥ 9%, EPS ≥ 140 yen) are now within reach for 2025 fiscal year. 2025 fiscal year planned ROE is 9.2%.
• Next mid-term plan (to be announced May 2026): The core direction will maintain the existing growth priority: urban infrastructure (led by data center) and system solution will remain the designated growth segments. AI-centric transformation will be a core strategic theme, with simultaneous focus on internal AI adoption for productivity and external AI service delivery to clients. The company will target a double-digit ROE for the next mid-term period, aiming for the highest possible double-digit ROE. Data center segment 2025 fiscal year order intake is already tracking to ~60 billion yen, and management expects continued sustained growth for the segment.

1. Communication Carrier Business: 40% of total revenue as of 2024 fiscal year end. It is the company's historical core business, growing driven by increasing data traffic from SNS and video streaming that requires communication infrastructure expansion. The company is optimizing this segment through subsidiary consolidation, site consolidation and offshore resourcing to improve profitability. 2. Urban Infrastructure Business: 30% of total revenue as of 2024 fiscal year end. The core high-growth sub-segment is data center services, which drove the early achievement of the mid-term plan's sales target. The company expects this segment to be the key near-term profit pillar. 3. System Solution Business: 30% of total revenue as of 2024 fiscal year end, including a 50 billion yen global business. The company targets this segment as the key long-term growth driver for high-value-added services. 2025 March fiscal year full-year consolidated results: Total revenue 670.8 billion yen (record high), operating profit 42.4 billion yen (record high).

• The most significant long-term risk is Japan's demographic decline and associated industry-wide labor shortage, which particularly impacts engineering and construction-focused operations. This is an industry-wide problem, not unique to Exio Group.
• For the high-growth data center segment, the key bottleneck is the shortage of skilled electrical and cooling technicians to meet booming demand.
• General external risks include rapid technology change, shifting social conditions, and climate change that create uncertainty for long-term planning.
• Mobile business performance has been slightly below original mid-term plan expectations in 2022 and 2023 fiscal years.

Q: What drove the early achievement of the previous mid-term plan's sales target one year ahead of schedule, and what is the priority for hitting this year's profit and ROE targets? / A: The main driver of the upside sales surprise was stronger-than-expected demand for data center projects, which accelerated sharply over the past 2-3 years due to AI boom. The company was able to capture this demand with its existing experience and client relationships, leading to the early achievement. For the 2025 fiscal year profit target, the priority is internal improvement initiatives including business process review, site consolidation, and group subsidiary integration to lift margins. The market environment remains favorable for continued growth.

Q: What are Exio Group's competitive advantages in the fast-growing data center market, and what are the key growth bottlenecks? / A: The main competitive advantages are early adoption of new technologies and long-standing trusted relationships with major hyperscalers. For example, when clients needed to switch designs from air cooling to water cooling mid-project to accommodate higher AI heat output, Exio was able to flexibly redo the design and deliver on time, which clients have highly valued. The main bottleneck is industry-wide shortage of skilled technical workers, particularly for electrical construction. Exio is addressing this by reallocating resources across group companies to expand capacity for data center projects.

Q: What is Exio's long-term segment positioning and growth priority? Which segment will be the core profit pillar going forward? / A: The core strategy is to achieve a balanced 1/3 revenue split across all three segments to reduce historical dependence on communication carrier services and diversify risk. Currently, data center in the urban infrastructure segment is the clear core growth driver and profit pillar. Going forward, the most important strategic priority is strengthening the system solution business to deliver higher-value-added services including AI integration and consulting, which will drive overall group profit growth. This includes building up system integration capabilities, improving consulting skills, and expanding high-margin service offerings.

Q: What is the largest long-term risk Exio Group is facing, and how are you addressing it? / A: The single biggest long-term risk is Japan's population decline and resulting persistent labor shortage, which is a nationwide structural issue. To address this, the company is expanding recruitment channels including career hiring, employee referral programs, retiree re-hiring, and adjusting starting salaries above market average to attract new graduates. It is also proactively expanding overseas business to reduce dependence on Japan's domestic market and build out a more diversified global revenue base.