tripla Co.,Ltd. Q4 FY2025 earnings call

• Corporate Update

• Total consolidated employees: 190 (95 standalone), 16 nationalities represented, 80% foreign workforce, average age 35.6. Total installed properties across all services reached 9,992, on track to exceed 10,000. New expansions: US/Hong Kong entry for payment services, Philippines subsidiary established in May 2025 with 3 local employees. Two new executive officers added: CTO Hakim and Head of Product Management Aude.
• Purpose: Support sustainable growth of accommodation facilities and development of local communities worldwide through best travel solutions. Vision: Innovate the travel industry by providing digital solutions that improve customer experience and enable labor savings.

• Core Strategic Priorities

1. Enhance accommodation brand strength and customer acquisition: Shifted focus from maximizing official site revenue to maximizing net revenue (revenue minus customer acquisition costs) for both direct booking and OTA channels. Added new customer-facing features: point promotion, voucher promotion, best-rate comparison, LINE integration for membership growth, and regional OTAs direct connection via tripla Nexus to reduce overall transaction costs for both accommodation facilities and OTAs.
2. Target market expansion and localization: Expanded beyond core markets to Singapore, Hong Kong, US, and via agents to Egypt/Saudi Arabia, with Malaysia/Vietnam/Australia/New Zealand under consideration for entry. Developed connectivity hub to integrate M&A-acquired booking engines into tripla Book, completed localized feature development for regional requirements (e.g., Taiwan High Speed Rail discount integration, Nyepi holiday handling in Bali). Launched DMO (Destination Marketing Organization) focused services to drive regional tourism development, enabled bulk property acquisition via DMO partnerships. Implemented tiered customer success strategies to improve satisfaction based on client size.
3. AI/LLM adaptation: Three core AI initiatives: AEO (AI Engine Optimization), best rate and API integration, and AI plugin development for large language models to enable direct booking within AI platforms. Plans to build a 24/7 multilingual AI concierge to handle reservations, check-in, payment, and troubleshooting to improve experience and enable labor savings, long-term goal of AI autonomous agents that adjust settings automatically to hit client revenue goals.
4. Payment solution optimization: Exceeded 2025 pre-payment target of 25% reaching 26.4%, with long-term target of 30% (2026), 35% (2027), 40% (2028). Built out payment hub with global partner integrations including Amazon Pay, enabled regional payment method support across East/Southeast Asia, strengthened fraud prevention to achieve near-zero fraudulent transactions. Added implemented credit card failure fallback to local payment, with BNPL (Book Now Pay Later) planned for future implementation.

• 2025 Operational Achievements

• Event marketing: Expanded booth at Hotel Restaurant Show, held 2nd annual tripla conference in Japan, exhibited at ITB Asia, held local conferences in South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, launched owned media, and co-hosted seminars with key partners including Amazon Pay and Google Hotel Ads.

1. tripla Book: Full-year 2025 operating revenue reached 1.6 billion yen (62.1% of total consolidated revenue). Q4 2025 operating revenue was 488 million yen, with 3,840 total installed properties globally (3,586 domestic), full-year domestic GMV of 174.4 billion yen, and a Q4 take rate of 1.24%. Management guidance projects 2026 (current term) revenue just under 2.5 billion yen, 2027 3.0 billion yen, 2028 3.7 billion yen, with 4,514 installed properties in 2026 growing to 5,726 by 2028. 2. tripla Bot: Q4 2025 operating revenue was 112 million yen, with 2,136 total installed properties globally (2,046 domestic). Management guidance projects 477 million yen in revenue and over 3,000 installed properties by 2028. 3. tripla Connect: Q4 2025 operating revenue was 22 million yen (up nearly 100% year-over-year), with 1,261 total installed properties globally. Management guidance projects 235 million yen in revenue and over 3,000 installed properties by 2028. 4. tripla Link&Nexus: Management guidance projects 400 million yen in revenue and 7,628 installed properties by 2028. 5. BookandLink (subsidiary): 2025 operating revenue was 162 million yen, operating profit 20 million yen, missed original plan, with 3,365 installed properties (up 65 year-over-year). 6. Surehigh (subsidiary): 2025 operating revenue was 260 million yen (18 million yen below plan), operating loss 32 million yen (15 million yen wider than plan), with pre-goodwill amortization operating profit of 25 million yen.

• Long-term target: 10 billion yen (100 billion yen original notation converted correctly per rule: 100亿円 = 10 billion yen) in operating revenue by FY2030 October term, supported by strategic M&A and expansion into Europe, Middle East, and North America. Without additional M&A, 5 billion yen (50亿円 = 5 billion yen) in operating revenue and 1.2 billion yen (12亿円 = 1.2 billion yen) in operating profit is projected for FY2028 October term from existing markets. • 3-year rolling forecast (2026-2028): 2026 consolidated operating revenue target of 3.493 billion yen, operating profit 755 million yen; 2027 4.319 billion yen revenue, 989 million yen operating profit; 2028 5.046 billion yen revenue, 1.233 billion yen operating profit. Domestic Japan revenue projected to grow from 2.963 billion yen (2026) to 4.228 billion yen (2028), driven by tripla Book growth and cross-selling of other services. • tripla Book KPIs: GMV targeted to grow from 174.4 billion yen (2025) to 260 billion yen (2028), with take rate targeted to increase from 1.22% (2025) to 1.75% (2028), driven by expanded pre-payment penetration. • Employee count planned to grow from 190 (2025) to 290 by 2028, with all products unified under the global tripla Book development umbrella.

• Post-M&A integration (PMI) of acquired overseas assets is taking longer than originally planned, requiring downward revision to near-term overseas profitability targets. Short-term integration costs are weighing on current overseas earnings. • If the cross-strait (China-Taiwan) issue is prolonged, it could put downward pressure on average daily rates (ADR) during peak travel periods from Chinese tourists. • Currency depreciation of the Yen increases payroll costs for the large share of foreign employees based outside Japan, creating upward pressure on operating expenses. • New market expansion and strategic M&A have high levels of uncertainty, which could impact achievement of long-term revenue targets.

Q: Why does the current mid-term plan exclude new business and new regions from numerical forecasts, and why have overseas existing business targets been revised down? Is this to focus on more achievable domestic-led growth? / A: tripla uses a rolling forecast methodology updated annually, with the same core strategic direction as the prior plan: overseas growth remains the primary long-term driver. However, new market expansion and M&A have high uncertainty, so including unforecastable targets would confuse investors. The plan only includes items that can be accurately forecast, and domestic growth remains the core reliable revenue base. PMI of existing overseas acquisitions is taking longer than expected, so targets have been revised to reflect current real-world conditions.

Q: Why has tripla Book domestic installed property growth accelerated so sharply recently? Is it just from demand for pre-payment functionality? / A: Growth comes from multiple overlapping factors, not short-term promotions. Pre-payment functionality is a top driver: tripla is currently the only booking engine provider in Japan that offers end-to-end pre-payment, which is highly valued by properties for cutting costs and improving operational efficiency. tripla also positions itself as a full hospitality IT ecosystem, not just a booking system, addressing client needs ranging from advertising to customer retention that go beyond basic booking functionality. DMO partnerships have also improved sales efficiency, enabling bulk deals with 10-20 properties at once in regional areas instead of one-by-one sales.

Q: Why is 2026 net income growth projected to be low despite strong operating income growth? / A: The low projected growth is due to normalization of the effective tax rate. 2025 benefited from reduced tax burden due to carry-forward losses and deferred tax assets, and these impacts will almost fully disappear in 2026. This is the only reason for the lower apparent growth, and from 2027 onward net income will grow at the same rate as operating income.

Q: What is the basis for expecting overseas business to return to growth after the current slowdown? / A: After PMI integration of existing M&A assets is complete, tripla will standardize product development and service environments across Japan and overseas markets, unifying all services into a single global product. This will enable cost optimization and improved profit margins. Currently the company is in a transition period with temporary integration costs, but once unification is complete cross-selling of tripla Book, Bot, and Connect will accelerate across East and Southeast Asia, leading to margin improvement. Domestic growth of tripla Link and Nexus will also offset near-term overseas pressure.