LY Corporation (YAHOF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-05-11 05:15:33 ET

LY Corporation (YAHOF)

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

May 07, 2025 04:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Takeshi Idezawa - President and CEO

Ryosuke Sakaue - Executive Corporate Officer and CFO

Yuki Ikehata - Executive Corporate Officer and Corporate Business Company CEO

Makoto Hide - Executive Corporate Officer and Commerce Company CEO

Conference Call Participants

Eiji Maeda - SMBC Nikko Securities

Minami Munakata - Goldman Sachs Securities

Yusuke Okumura - Okasan Securities

Hiroko Sato - Jefferies

Daisaku Masuno - Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.

Yijia Zhai - UBS Securities Japan Co., Ltd.

Oliver Matthew - CLSA Securities Japan Co., Ltd.

Presentation

Operator

We would like to start the LY Corporation Earnings Briefing for FY 2024 Full Year and Q4. Thank you very much indeed for your participation. During today's briefing, we will be using the presentation material that you can find in our website. From LY Corporation, first, we have Mr. Takeshi Idezawa, CEO; Mr. Ryosuke Sakaue, CFO; Mr. Yuki Ikehata, the CEO of Marketing Solutions Company; and Mr. Makoto Hide, the CEO of Commerce Company. First, Mr. Idezawa will present the FY 2024 full year and Q4 results. And then we take questions.

We plan to spend about the 60 minutes for the whole briefing session. We are live streaming this session. If you have technical difficulties, please use the link at the bottom of the screen and move to another server. So let us get started.

Takeshi Idezawa

Thank you. This is Idezawa, the CEO of LY Corporation. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to attend FY '24 full year and Q4 business results briefing. I'd like to present a summary of business results. First, this shows the FY '24 business results. Adjusted EBITDA grew 13.5% year-on-year to JPY470.8 billion. In FY '25, we will focus on three areas. First is to transform LINE Official Account and LINE MINI App into the business platform. Second is to transform PayPay from the payment app into the digital financial platform. We'll try to expand the ecosystem so that we can realize the corporate value and prepare for the IPO. Number three is to deploy AI agents in consumer-facing services in full scale.

High single-digit increase in revenue and profit plan for FY '25, including investments. And today, we announced up to JPY150 billion share repurchase to improve the capital efficiency. Please go to next page. So here, this is the agenda that I'd like to go through.

Next page. So starting with the entire group consolidated business results. In FY '24, revenue and profit increased in Media, Commerce and Strategic segment. Entire group adjusted EBITDA increased 13.5% year-on-year. Adjusted EPS increased 11.7% year-on-year. From FY '25, we changed or redefined the adjusted EPS. For the FY '24 number, based on both definitions are shown. The new definition includes the nonrecurring gains and losses below the operating profit and PPA amortization as new adjustment items, with the aim of showing normal profitability without one-off gains and losses or the impact of the past M&A.

So after the merger, this shows the trend of the performance. In all segments, we saw the growth of the businesses. And after the merger, we focus on a lean operation of organization. And as a result, we realized a double-digit adjusted EBITDA and margin expanded to 24.6%. This shows the factors of change in adjusted EBITDA of the entire company. In FY '24, each business higher revenue contributed to the higher profits. We realized double-digit profit growth....

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