LIFULL Co.,Ltd. Q4 FY2025 earnings call

• Core Business Model & Strategic Focus

  • LIFULL operates a housing and real estate information portal business centered on LIFULL HOME'S, which connects users from property browsing to inquiry, and generates revenue primarily through fees charged to real estate industry clients for property listing services and customer acquisition support.
  • Following 2024 overseas business restructuring, the company's medium-term management plan focuses all management resources on domestic LIFULL HOME'S-related core business.
  • The company has achieved 8 consecutive quarters of revenue growth through the fourth quarter of the 2025 September fiscal year, driven by sustained expansion in both client count and average revenue per account (ARPA).

• AI-Driven Growth Flywheel

  • The company's core competitive advantage is holding both large-scale user traffic (customer acquisition starting point) and transaction behavioral data simultaneously.
  • Higher portal traffic generates more user inquiries, and the resulting user behavioral data (showing which property conditions drive user engagement) is used as training material for the company's AI models.
  • AI learning outputs are integrated into search, display, and recommendation user journeys to improve referral volume and closing rates, which in turn improves clear return on investment for client real estate companies. This creates a self-reinforcing growth cycle that drives simultaneous increases in client count and average revenue per client.

• Medium-Term Strategic Targets

  • For the 2026 September fiscal year to 2028 September fiscal year medium-term plan, the company targets becoming the "No.1 in housing x AI" sector by reconfiguring both consumer-facing and business-facing services through AI optimization of the large dataset accumulated on Japan's largest-scale housing portal.
  • The explicit medium-term target is to reach an operating profit margin of over 15% by the 2028 September fiscal year.

• Shareholder Return Policy

  • LIFULL raised its payout ratio to 30% starting from the 2025 September fiscal year, confirming a clear shareholder return commitment. As of February 2, 2026, the specific dividend per share for the 2026 September fiscal year has not yet been finalized.

1. LIFULL HOME'S-related segment: This core segment accounted for approximately 90% of total company revenue in the 2025 September fiscal year, making it the primary focus for investment analysis. 2. Other domestic segments: The company also operates smaller niche business segments including Kenbiya (investment real estate segment) and LIFULL Kaigo (elderly care facility segment), which collectively make up the remaining 10% of total revenue. 3. Overseas business segment: This segment had been experiencing sustained poor performance, and LIFULL announced a restructuring of the overseas business in 2024 as part of its strategic shift.

• Fiscal 2026 September full year guidance: The company projects total revenue of 29.7 billion yen, representing a 5.6% year-over-year increase. It projects a 21.4% year-over-year decrease in operating profit and a 64.3% year-over-year decrease in net profit, as the company is currently in an upfront investment phase for AI and growth initiatives.
• Medium-term (2028 September fiscal year) guidance: The company maintains its target range of 35.0 billion yen to 40.0 billion yen in total revenue, 5.5 billion yen to 6.0 billion yen in operating profit, and an operating profit margin above 15%. No upward or downward revision to these targets is noted in the transcript.

• The core near-term risk to performance is that the projected sustained expansion of referral volume and ARPA in line with plan may not materialize during the current upfront investment phase. Any underperformance of these key metrics would impact long-term growth and profit targets. The market has already partially priced in the expected profit decline for the 2026 September fiscal year due to upfront investment spending.

No formal question and answer section is included in the provided transcript. The only planned Q&A will be held during a live public IR seminar on February 14, 2026, which had not occurred at the time of this publication.