IR FAQ

Corporate Information

What is your company profile? How is the employee distribution?

I'd like to know how the Company was founded.

Our company was originally founded in May 2005 as a webpage design company by Makoto Tokuda (now serves as corporate advisor) and Takuya Mochizuki (now serves as full-time corporate auditor). Sometime after, Hiroshi Yamamoto (now serves as representative director) joined the Company as a programmer.
In 2010, the development department spun off into wholly owned subsidiary PLUGRAM, Inc. Hiroshi Yamamoto and Ryutaro Minato (now serves as executive vice president and director) drew on their past experience in POS cash register development to embark on a mission to create a cash register that could be used through a smartphone. Development on Smaregi, the first in-house product, began, and was released in September 2011. Please refer to our History.

When was the Company established?

On May 24th, 2005.
For more details, please take a look at our History.

What is your corporate philosophy and vision for the future?

Please take a look at our Corporate Identity and Mission.

Do you have paper documents?

Currently, we can only provide explanatory materials on our financial results.
Unfortunately, we do not send IR documents, etc individually by postal mail. You can view various materials such as financial results presentation materials and monthly disclosures at the IR Library.

Where can I learn about your CSR initiatives?

Please take a look at our Sustainability.

Where can I learn about your corporate governance initiatives?

We consider strengthening our corporate governance system to be a top management priority to ensure sustainable improvement of corporate value. Due to achieving this, we are striving to maintain a highly transparent and flexible structure to guarantee we fulfill our responsibilities to our shareholders and customers.
For more details, please refer to Corporate Governance.

Business Information

What kind of businesses do you operate?

Please take a look at the Business Activity pages.

In what kind of stores has Smaregi been introduced?

You can find a list of the main stores that use Smaregi on the Smaregi service site.

How many stores use Smaregi?

You can review the latest figures for fee-paying stores and active stores (including no-fees stores) in the monthly report, which is released on the third business day of every month. The count of stores enrolled in the free plan is disclosed on a quarterly basis within the financial statements.

What are the advantages of Smaregi?

Smaregi is a high-performance tablet POS system that goes beyond the conventional system.
Basic POS features are provided free of charge. The Retail Business Plan, which is one of our signature plans, provides a wide range of fine-tuned functions to support businesses that differ by industry and type. It includes advanced features for retailers such as inventory management that enable stores to fully manage product inventory across stores and warehouses.
Furthermore, we offer the flexibility to integrate with external systems, such as accounting systems and backbone core systems through APIs enabling a smoother implementation.
As a business core system that goes beyond a simple cash register, Smaregi contributes to users' business efficiency and convenience.
For more detail, please contact us using IR Inquiries.

What sales channels does Smaregi have?

We focus primarily on sales by appointment at our showrooms and generally speaking, we do not engage in on-site or proposal-based sales. At our showrooms, sales members provide explanations of our services and demonstrations using the relevant equipment.
In addition, we engage in indirect sales through a partner system that involves distributors, vendors, and franchises. The support provided by partners is a powerful driver of sales as partners are able to serve areas, sizes of businesses, and types of businesses that we are unable to reach out directly. We are committed to cooperating with various partners to increase the number of stores using our services. For more information, please refer to the Business Partners section on the Smaregi service site.
We also offer online account registration and equipment sales, which enables you to start using our services without the need for business negotiations.

Could you tell me more about your Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) business?

Please refer to the page for Smaregi Ventures.

Could you tell me more about Smaregi App Market?

This is a platform that connects stores facing a diverse range of needs and issues with businesses and developers who provide optimal solutions.

Why does Smaregi focus primarily on medium-sized businesses?

We offer a wide range of features that are useful not just to single stores but also to enterprise companies with multiple stores, such as simple accounting features, inventory management and customer management across several stores, and integrations across various types of external systems such as backbone core systems (*services available depending on customer plan).
Due to their lower IT investment budgets, many small businesses (for example individual stores) remain on our free plan. For the larger businesses, the lead time up to the system becoming operational can be protracted due to complex system requirements.
For these reasons, we judge that focusing on medium-sized businesses represents the most efficient use of our resources. In the future, we aim to expand our focus both upwards and downwards from medium-sized businesses and capture the top share of the domestic tablet POS market.

What is the economic impact of the spread of COVID-19?

While there was a temporary drop in the number of fee-paying stores when the first declaration of emergency was issued in April 2020, the situation has continued to improve since then. The current impact of COVID-19 on our business is limited due to shifting business negotiations online.

Do you also manufacture cash register peripheral devices?

We do not manufacture hardware, rather we purchase and sell products made by other companies.
For more information on the main products we handle, please refer to the Smaregi eCommerce site STORE STORE.

Stock Information

When/where did the Company get listed?

We were listed on the Mothers (Growth) segmentation of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc on February 28, 2019.

What is the Company's stock ticker symbol?

4431. The type of industry is “Information / Communication”.

When does the Company hold its shareholders meeting?

We hold an annual meeting of shareholders every year in late July. The date, time and location of the meeting is announced in early July to everyone who has become a shareholder by April 30.

What is the situation of the Company's dividends?

While the Company considers the redistribution of profits to shareholders one of the most important issues in its business operation. However, the Company is in the stage of growth, we believe it will be in the shareholder's best interest to enhance its internal reserves, and make upfront investments to enhance our services for future growth in addition to strengthening its overall financial stability.
As such, the Company has not made any distribution of dividends since its establishment, and intends to focus on the enhancement of its internal reserve for the time being.
Our policy is to aim to pay dividends to shareholders in the future while taking into account our operating results and financial position.

Who is the Company's stock transfer agent?

Please refer to the Stock Information.

Who should I contact regarding stock-related procedures (e.g. changing my registered address)?

For inquiries about changing addresses, names, or requests for documents required for stock-related procedures, please contact your securities company.
For general procedures relating to stock affairs, please contact our shareholder registry administrator office, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation’s stock transfer agency department.

Please tell me about the analyst coverage.

We are a micro-cap stock and the analyst coverage is limited.
Please take a look at our Analyst Coverage.

What are the reasons for the share buybacks you have conducted so far?

We repurchased shares to provide an incentive plan for our employees and to enable the execution of a flexible capital policy that responds to changes in the business environment.

Could you give me any details about your shareholder composition?

Please refer to the “Status of the Submitting Company” section in the securities report*. 
*Written in Japanese

Financial Information

When is the Company's fiscal year end?

End of April of each calendar year.

When is the next earnings announcement?

Please take a look at the IR Calendar.

Where can I find the latest Financial Result?

Please refer to the Financial Results pages.
You can also download materials and view financial results briefing videos.

Where can I learn about the Company's historical performance?

Please refer to the Financial Hilights.

What is the difference between "Registered store" and "Active store"?

[Number of Registered stores]
The total number of registered accounts to date for Smaregi, regardless of plan type, etc (excluding cancellations).
[Number of Active stores]
The total number of stores that have executed the payment processing using Smaregi in the past month, regardless of plan type. *Stores that do not process payment are not included as the active store, even if they have used inventory management or other features.

Is it just Smaregi that is included in ARR (subscription sales)?

ARR consists of three types of revenue: Smaregi tablet POS-related usage fees including Smaregi App Market, monthly usage fees for Smaregi TimeCard attendance management system, and settlement service-related usage fees.

Does the Company have a quiet period?

The Company has designated a quiet period from the day following the last day of the fiscal year (quarterly settlement) to each financial statement announcement date. During this period, we refrain from commenting on or answering questions about business performance, forecasts, projections, or unpublished financial results.
However, the Company will make announcements as appropriate and in a timely manner in the event of a material fact that the Company determines may affect investors' decisions, or if such information is required to be disclosed under applicable laws, regulations, or Timely Disclosure Rules.
In addition, the Company responds to questions about previously disclosed information even during the quiet period.

Other

Can I receive financial results and IR news by e-mail?

We use a mailing list as our IR Newsletter (currently available in Japanese).
If you need more detailed information in English, please let us know.

Where can I make inquiries about IR?

Please contact us using IR Inquiries.

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