>>78143053I'm too lazy to engage with bait, so saved this post to do it for me:
The "Financial Results for" whatever quarter document (the one that looks like a slideshow presentation) isn't a legally required disclosure, unlike the "Financial Results for the Fiscal Year" document which is more dull (although it still has some nice quotes, like saying that NIJISANJI is "grooming" VTubers). This means that there's no required form for the slideshow. However, until 2024 Q4, there has been a very consistent style, so the change is a clear indication that some things--the things that were removed--were so unfavorable that they felt compelled to remove them. It hasn't always been exactly the same, but the changes which have been made were generally minor--not so substantial as eliminating half of the presentation.
First, the "Financial Summary". This has been showing a growing bar graph of FY 2024 (1) Revenue, (2) Operating Profit / Margin, and (3) Net Profit / Margin, with each quarterly report adding an additional piece, and comparisons being made to the "piece" (the relevant quarter) from FY 2023. It started off looking pretty good--they had about 90% Y/Y growth in (2) and (3) in FY 2024 Q1--but this cratered to 20% Y/Y growth by Q3. This page (showing the three graphs) is not present in the Q4 presentation. If we compare the actual numbers to the numbers the Q1 report touts, ANYCOLOR was looking towards the following at Q4: Revenue, 38241 (actual, 31996); Operating Profit, 17926 (actual, 12362); Net Profit, 12795 (actual, 8726). The forecast goals were deliberately understated so that, in the event of contingencies, there would be some breathing room, while still aiming for high growth. ANYCOLOR failed to hit any of the forecasts, much less exceed them.
Next up is the table of "Financial Reports"--pretty sleepy, right? But actually, the Q4 report is more sparse on details here as well. The Q4 report gives revenue, costs of sales (broken up into direct and other costs), and operating, ordinary, and net profits (with margins for each). The Q3 report gave revenue (broken up into NIJISANJI (just JP), NIJISANJI EN, and other), costs of sales (broken up into direct and other costs), gross profit, SG&A expenses (broken up into four categories), and net profit. So, the gross profit is bad, and NIJISANJI EN is bad--those were the main items removed.
Now for the colorful "Revenue (Quarter)" graphs. The Q3 report has one for NIJISANJI and one for NIJISANJI EN, with the bars being broken up to show sources of revenue for each. The Q4 report has one for branch and one for source. This hides the decline in NIJISANJI EN by mixing up promotions. You can, however, see that the NIJISANJI EN group revenue has declined continuously since FY 2023 Q3. Note also that the low performance of FY 2024 Q3 was explained away by a shift in dates--the same shift that buttresses this Q4. That's why they can boast a 47% Y/Y increase (which they show twice for some reason). This means that the FY 2025 Q1 report will be without the boost, so expect a significant drop Y/Y with that report. Will Riku have the money for a buyback then?
Riding this Q3-Q4 bump, the report shifts focus from the "Operating Margin (Quarter)" of previous reports to "Operating Profit (Quarter)". The decrease in "Direct Variable Costs" means less many going to the livers. (I'm looking to prepare a separate mini-report on that subject soon. I haven't run the exact numbers, but basically, while the company was 47% up Y/Y, the livers as a group were probably up only about 10% Y/Y, if that--and that's not counting how new livers get very little in NIJISANJI (both JP and EN).)
Next is "Number of VTuber and ANYCOLOR ID" (in both reports), but the graphs are cut much shorter now than they used to be. This is especially clear for the "Number of VTuber" graph--despite bragging about introducing more talents, the revolving door doesn't seem to increase the total number by very much. That explains the 20+ new debuts in the past year but only two more talents total in that time period.
The next slide is "Number of Employees" and this graph gets the cut-short treatment to match the last slide's two graphs. They mention "new graduate recruitments" for the substantial increase in employees, but I'm not sure what this means. In any case, the more employees (given the same number of VTubers) and the decrease in Direct Variable Costs means less money to the talents.
Now, what follows in the Q3 report is a summary of the company's progress towards its projected forecasts. This summary included short statements of what ANYCOLOR was doing to achieve those goals. The following slides then included many pretty pictures of all of the new VTuber projects they had started. Of course, having failed to meet the projections, these glowing images are absent.
