Operator : Thank you very much for joining us at Rakuten Group FY 2026 Second Quarter Consolidated Financial Result. Already the flash report of the summary of the financial report has been disclosed 3:30 P.M. this afternoon. Please refer to content from the investors' information page on the corporate website. If you have problem with the truncated image and video, please select the different distribution server, where is a button at the bottom of the slide. I'd like to invite Mr. Mikitani for the presentation.

Hiroshi Mikitani : Hello, everyone. First of all, the effect of the 2026, those families and individuals that have been affected, we would like to offer our heartfelt support. Two weeks before the earthquake, in fact, I was in Kumamoto. I visited Aeon Mall as well, who had been severely struck by the earthquake. Those people who have difficulties and bereaved, at Rakuten Group, we would like to do everything that we can. We'd like to offer heartfelt support and also consolations through that. In terms of the topic today, this will be the summary. Number one being summary and FinTech business reorganization and segment result. In finance, CFO Kaga-san will be presenting. Chief AI Officer, Data Officer, Ting Cai will be presenting this section. Without further ado, the summary. Rakuten Group, this is the second quarter. In terms of the net income, we were able to achieve positive by amount of JPY 227.2 billion. Mobile business is a big challenge that we have executed, and that is a growth driver for us. In the meantime, since Q2 of 2020, we have been able to enjoy the positive result. Reflective of that, in eight or six years, it says. This is not only a one-off, but this needs to be a perpetuating result that we would like to achieve on the coming years. The consolidated revenue, the record high of JPY 665.5 billion. With the size of our business, year-on-year 11.6% growth. We have been able to grow our business quite steadily. Each segment, all of them are on a growth trajectory. Also, in terms of consolidated EBITDA is a record high for second quarter, JPY 150.3 billion. Year-on-year, it's a growth by 11.7% in terms of the growth rate. Non-GAAP operating income is, again, ML service, this is a record high, JPY 42 billion. Again, year-on-year, it's 109.6%, roughly 110% increase over this year. With that being said, this is regarding the FinTech business. Rakuten's FinTech business, bank, securities, and card, and although this was not included this time, insurance and Rakuten Point Card or Rakuten Payment. We do have these entities, and respectively, they're top leaders within each industry, we believe. Regarding card, shopping GTV, JPY 27.7 trillion. That's second quarter result. Amazing result. For digital bank, Rakuten Bank, the number of accounts, 18.46 million accounts. Very soon we will be achieving 20 million mark. For Rakuten Securities, general accounts, 14.39 million accounts. We're number one in the industry. This has industry-leading growth and overwhelming customer base. These three companies basically will be under the umbrella of Rakuten Bank. For the details, we would like to talk about this later. We do believe there are two major synergies: straightforward financial synergies, that's one, and from marketing perspective, maximizing individual customer base. Cross-use of customers or acquire new customers. We do believe that there will be significant synergies that could be generated. The total impact, 2029, 2028. Actually, in October, we will integrate, which means that full year will be fiscal year ending March 2028. That's JPY 25 billion, approximately, in financial impact and JPY 8 billion in terms of the marketing impact. Furthermore, with this growth for March 2030, JPY 85 billion of synergy effect presumably can be gained. Going forward, Rakuten Bank, the synergy with Rakuten Securities, we will be able to leverage their capabilities. Like I said, the number of accounts, Rakuten Bank, 18.46 million, and for Rakuten Card, overwhelmingly, the number of cards is extremely high. We will be able to refer customers and Rakuten Card and Rakuten Securities. With NISA, it is leading the young customer base. There, once again, will be synergy. What kind of synergies? Rakuten Card, non-transfer of bank, and those people with a bank transfer at Rakuten Bank, the direct debit, the deposit amount is 4.3x. With and without Money Bridge, that's 4.4x difference. As we move into the world with interest rate, how can we go about opening more accounts and have our customers deposit their balance in those accounts? These will challenge us. We believe that there'll be a lot of benefits that we can gain from consolidating integration. Card, bank, securities will be integrated. We want to increase the deposit and also diversify the portfolio. Not just these three entities, but synergy with Rakuten Group can be generated. Through Rakuten Payment, this FinTech ecosystem, and Rakuten Group e-commerce. We will be connecting the two ecosystems. Moving on to by segment results. The internet service segment, in terms of the business result for the second quarter, revenue is JPY 338.1 billion, and year-on-year is up plus by 4.2%. With AI utilization and other levers, non-GAAP operating income year-on-year is 68.6% increase, JPY 23.1 billion. Looking into the breakdown in content, the domestic EC GMS, its year-on-year, it's a 5.3% increase there by JPY 1.5 trillion. Rakuten Travel GTV, it's a 17.2% increase. The investment, again, plus by 17.6% for realizing IRR. International is also a very robust business growth, especially, it could be highlighted to the sense that advertising revenue year-on-year is JPY 65.6 billion. Data and AI, Rakuten Mobile, DPI data inclusive, we are able to enjoy a great amount of momentum and growth. If I may reiterate, GMS is, as you can see, is increasing. At the same time, the revenue is plus by 5.3%. Non-GAAP operating product is 30.8% positive. The AI, how this could be well leveraged and utilized. Without AI, we would not be able to grow our business. With that being said, AI, we are putting a lot of emphasis on AI. One of the examples I'd like to share with you is that what we are promoting and developing, AI Shop Manager. Allow me to introduce the shop manager. With Rakuten and Amazon, the biggest difference is that for Rakuten, it's based on brick and mortar stores, and the store is the basis. In other words, the human touch shopping experience that we'd be able to offer. At the same time, in terms of hospitality, we like to offer the sense of omotenashi and hospitality from Japan. The true real store managers, 24 by 7 or serving a few tens of thousands of customers at the same time is not feasible. The shop manager, the personality or the store characteristics or the product characteristic, having deep understanding of that, AI ShopManager will be able to provide service 24 by 7. I think you're running a video of this AI Shop Manager.

Speaker 2 : Welcome. This is your AI Shop Manager. May I help you? Do you have any concerns about your skin? I don't like oily products. I want something that feels light and refreshing. I recommend the water-based gel formula or one with menthol if you prefer a cooling sensation. Those are the two popular products. First item is standard facial toner that emphasizes refreshing sensation. The second is moisturizing, balance all-in-one gel. The right one looks good. What about the reviews? The review is 4.6, very highly evaluated. In the summer, it's light on your skin, and the next morning you don't feel your skin shiny. It sounds good. I will go with that. Thank you very much. Please confirm your order once again. Is it okay to process your order with these details? Yes, it's okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for your purchase. We'll be looking forward to seeing you again.

Hiroshi Mikitani : Within this year, we're going to launch the service, and we're now extending our effort for the further development. The next I would like to highlight about the Rakuten Travel business. Again, it's a robust growth that we are enjoying. In terms of year-on-year, it's 17.2% in term of GTV. The domestic is 10% growth year-on-year. Again, a very robust growth. On top of that, the global related, we have 78.5% year-on-year. Especially in terms of Rakuten Travel Xchange, we have been holding the other wholesalers distribution in terms of the room accommodation inventory, the various countries. The effective, of course, travel services, we're going to connect them all. We have 1,295 companies. The service companies are connected to Rakuten Travel Xchange. The sales of that is increasing, the transaction value is increasing. That is a reason for the growth of the gross transaction value. Outside of that, the investment that are being made, we are working hard in order to improve the profitability of the business. Last year, the second quarter compared to that is a growth by JPY 3.3 billion, the improvement of the losses. The international department. Rakuten France marketing, they have worked hard, but they have not been able to achieve the ambitious goal. We are unfortunately closing down this operation, that is something that we decided. The growth is the 3.9% growth. Non-GAAP operating increase is slight decline, but it's showing a very robust foundation of growth. Viber, Viki, Rakuten Kobo, and also Yac Universe. These are increasing their profitability steadily. Already mentioned earlier, the ad business. This is in fact showing a very healthy, strong growth. This quarter, year-on-year is 15.6% positive year-on-year. JPY 65.6 billion year basis. We'll now be able to seek JPY 300 billion. AI utilization, for instance, in terms of contents created, the creation of that. In terms of a banner, static image, and the video ad, we are going to offer that. At the same time, massive amount of transactions and inspection performance and bidding, everything is going to be leveraging AI capability. At the same time, based on Rakuten's customer base database, we are going to effectively use the targeting ad. Segment. Moving on to the fintech segment. Revenue and income. Revenue JPY 295.4 billion, very robust. Year-on-year, 27% increase. Non-GAAP operating income, JPY 69.2 billion, year-on-year, 60.1% increase. Rakuten Card GTV +9.4%, that's JPY 7.1 trillion. Rakuten Bank account 18.46 million, bank deposits JPY 13.3 trillion. Deposit. Of course, it's very competitive to gain deposits, but it grew by 13.9% year-on-year. Securities general account, 14.39 million, 14.5% growth. Especially young people are opening accounts and NISA accounts. In July, we surpassed 8 million, growing by more than 20% year-on-year. Assets under custody, a +48.3% year-on-year basis, a total of JPY 58.7 trillion. For Rakuten Card, the number of cards growing nicely. Shopping GTV and financial expense is going up. With a reorganization of our financial businesses, we will be able to minimize the downside expense. Operating income, since we're controlling. Non-GAAP operating income is +16.2%. JPY 17.4 was the result for Q2. For Rakuten Bank, we made financial result announcements already. Interest rate is going up. Given this backdrop, we are growing nicely. Ordinary revenue JPY 78.4 billion. Ordinary profit JPY 30.2 billion, 26.1% year-on-year. Capital adequacy ratio 11.4%. ROE 22%. Accounts 18.4 million. Main accounts. The ratio. The main accounts increased by 7.7%. It is now 6 million. Main account ratio is improving, deposits grew by 13.9%, expense ratio coming down. Our activities are materializing. For Rakuten Securities, especially with new NISA, we are gaining new accounts. It is growing, the number of accounts. It is growing and surpassing 15 million. Operating revenue as well as operating income, very robust, especially operating income under Japanese GAAP, it grew by 2.4x or more. What is more is assets under custody. It has exceeded JPY 60 trillion. Very steady, very stable performance is being achieved. The stock flow revenue, you can see the ratio here. The stock ratio is going up over the past quarters. Now insurance business is not included in this reorg, but very steady. We are honestly saying revamping this business. Revenue and income. Revenue is JPY 20.7 billion and operating income, JPY 1.5 billion. We are generating profits. Going forward, we believe that we will be able to generate more profit. For Rakuten Payment, JPY 29.1 billion of revenue, +12.2% year-on-year, non-GAAP operating income, JPY 3.2 billion. Year-on-year, it is close to +80%. We have been working with different partners. As you know, the other day, we announced with FamilyMart, we have started SPU eligible services. If you spend more than JPY 3,000 or more per month, then you can earn points plus 0.5% times. Now with mobile segment. In terms of revenue is JPY 121.4 billion, year-on-year is a positive at 8.3%. Non-GAAP operating income is an improvement by JPY 4.1 billion. EBITDA, year-on-year is a -28.4%. In segment, for one thing, is the home straight, the energy crisis, the Rakuten Electricity. The energy price has gone up. That is the main reason for that. Also pre-marketing cash flow. There was a new acquisition. What would happen without the new acquisition is a scenario. Already JPY 28 billion profit is being generated. Year-on-year, this is positive by 11.8%. Mobile, of course, account, it is going to achieve 10.8 million, the churn rate is going down. ARPU is also gradually going up steadily. Rakuten Symphony, the number of customers and the number of partners are also on the growth trajectory. Mobile, in the business specifically, if I can allude on that. 11.9% revenue, non-GAAP operating income is an improvement by JPY 6.7 billion. It is in red with JPY 32.3 billion. As I said, the pre-marketing cash flow, it is JPY 27.1 billion. In terms of the number of outlets is increasing, the marketing is quite active. With that, excluding all that, there is a major contribution in terms of the profitability of our business. Also in terms of March and April, the peak competitive season after that, gradually we are still on a rise and on an increase. The churn rate, again, the hopping, the targeting, the point accumulation, those customers, we have been able to contain that. Therefore, the churn rate compared, it was 1.3% for the second quarter. We have seen improvement in this area. Data usage has been growing nicely as well, ARPU as well. Going forward, the options is an area that we also want to grow. Data usage, like I said, is growing. 20 GB plus users ratio share expanded plus 3.6 percentage points. Network needs to be put in place. As we initially planned, we will make investment of JPY 200 billion. 5G construction has been more or less completed in this area. Also for Tokyo Metro, we only had 5 megahertz, but we will be growing to 20 MHz bandwidth expansion. As you may know, with Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, creating Japan low-Earth orbit satellite communication. As indirect subsidy operator, we have been selected. Our investment is JPY 248 billion we will be receiving. We would like to contribute toward resilience that maintains domestic communications infrastructure. Regarding the finance, last week, there was a comment from KDDI. I would like to comment regarding roaming. First and foremost, Rakuten Mobile business, we have had roaming contract with KDDI, and we started the whole business with that, and the main goal was NTT's dominance. We wanted to shift from that situation so that we can democratize telecommunication. KDDI had supported our goal, and we were very grateful for that. Based on the contract with KDDI, we have come this far. First of all, where we have the coverage based on the contract, we will continue on from October and onwards. Where Rakuten does not have a coverage, the roaming will be reduced gradually. That will be the approach we will be taking. I will stop here. Thank you.

Eiichi Kaga : Thank you for your kind participation. I would like to report on the finance. First of all, in terms of the summary of the second quarter, Non-GAAP operating income was JPY 42 billion. IFRS operating income was JPY 20 billion after recording one-off item, including impairment losses on fixed asset in the logistic business. This represents more than double the figure of the same period last year. Since the one-off items are non-cash accounting items, we believe the group's underlying capacity to generate cash is steadily increasing. In addition to that, income before tax was positive, mentioned by Mr. Mikitani. The fourth consecutive quarter since the third quarter of last year, we have been able to achieve positive. Furthermore, I would like to explain later. The reversal of tax expenses arose in connection with the sales of shares we held. As a result, quarterly net income attributable to owners of the parent returned to profit for the first time in six years, since the second quarter of 2020. Regarding the one-off item I just mentioned, in this second quarter, we recorded JPY 17 billion of impairment losses on fixed asset and related item in the logistic business. The impairment resulted from the decision, following discussion with the counterparty of our warehouse leasing service, to terminate that service and convert the warehouse to our own use. Together with impairment recorded in fiscal 2025 on warehouse held in the online supermarket logistic business, we have now impaired the entire book value of our own warehouses, which means that from a financial perspective, the associated balance sheet risk has been eliminated going forward. On the other hand, this is an accounting treatment reflecting the past asset and shift to more efficient management structure. At the same time, we intend to improve supply chain management in order to maximize the potential of our logistic facility, reduce operating costs, and create competitive advantage in e-commerce. In terms of the second quarter, accounting treatment in tax expense in connection with the sales of share we held, especially as a result of the sales of fair value OCI shares held by a group company, the gain on sales was not recognized through P&L, but transferred directly to retained earnings. On the other hand, an unrecognized tax effect recorded on OCI in relation to this transaction was transferred, thereby recorded on the tax benefit. That is a negative tax expense on the P&L. The actual negative tax expense reflecting the fact that substantially no tax payment arises. That is a cause. In addition to that, this accounting treatment suggests that as a result of a strategic investment to date, we have more than JPY 1 trillion of net operating loss. This would offset a certain portion of a future tax expense. As earnings improve further, that effect will materialize and contribute to maximizing our cash flow. Next, I would like to explain once again the significance of the reorganization of our fintech business scheduled to take effect on October the 1st, including the financial perspective. The purpose of this reorganization is to operate one financial business in a more integrated manner, thereby accelerating growth and improving operational efficiencies. As Mikitani explained earlier, we expect to generate more than JPY 85 billion in synergies by the fiscal year ending March 2030. This reorganization is not intended as a means of fundraising for the company. May 20th, we disclosed that while the transaction does require a certain capital contribution in order to carry out the reorganization, I would like to reiterate that we currently have no intention of selling shares of the bank. We recognize that the market assessment of our financial position continues to improve. The chart on the left shows the spread calculated from the yields on our corporate bond and the yields on the JGB government bond of corresponding maturity. The blue line shows the credit spread one year ago, the red line shows the most recent level. Across the maturities, spreads are steadily tightening on the trend. On the chart on the right, CDS spread also shows a relative improvement compared to the market index. To further enhance the market assessment of the company, we would continue working to strengthen our financial soundness. Lastly, our financial policy remain unchanged. Self-funding, meeting the funding needs of the mobile business without relying on external financing. As I mentioned earlier, in the second quarter, we raised approximately JPY 200 billion through the sales of shares that we have held. Going forward, we will continue to use such asset finance while securing the funds we need through the cash flow of each business and improvement in the cash conversion cycle. The bond redemptions are also proceeding smoothly in line with our policy. In addition to redeeming our perpetual subordinated bonds in full, the first call date on April, and in June, we redeemed JPY 20 billion of senior bonds entirely with cash on hand without issuing a refinancing bond. In terms of the December, we will be able to redeem in full with the cash on hand as well. In 2027 onward, the bond redemption, we would like to take a proactive approach in this range, the business cash flow, maximizing them, the gross debt will be contained, of course, by refinance if it's being required. In terms of the closely monitoring the market trends, such as foreign exchange and interest rate, we would like to select our optimal means for a company. That's all for the finance section. I would like to invite about initiative of AI. Chief AI and Data Officer Ting will be taking this part.

Ting Cai : Thank you, Kaga-san. Hello, everyone. I will share an update on the Rakuten AI vision and our execution momentum in Q2 2026. As we discussed last quarter, the strength of the Rakuten ecosystem lies in the synergy among its services. AI presents a unique opportunity to amplify that synergy by attracting new users at lower cost, increasing cross-use, and bring more value to our users and the businesses. We are doing that in three ways: engage, expand, and differentiate. Engage means making every touchpoint more relevant and useful. Expand means increasing the usage scenario and surface area where we can be helpful to our customers, guiding them from vague idea to concrete actions. Differentiate means guiding a customer all the way to task completion from online discovery to offline delivery, an end-to-end experience that general purpose agent cannot match. Together, these three areas add up to a durable competitive advantage, built not only just on data, but also accumulate intelligence within the Rakuten ecosystem. Today, we will share examples in each of the three areas. First, engage. The application of large language models goes beyond chat. Language models can understand the user intent, identify patterns, match, and translate better than any previous technology. This is why we use large language models to enrich our item data, improve our ranking signal, and in this case, improve our understanding of user queries. Through LLM, we can better understand whether user have made up their mind or not. Take two customer on Ichiba as an example. One customer search for specific model number, and in this case, he knows exactly what he wants, and we only return product that matches that exact model number. With a set of limited choices, we accelerate his decision to check out. Another customer search for gift for summer holidays, and she does not have any specific product in mind. In this case, we guide users through explorations, present a broader set of suggestions, expanded option, and increasing the bucket size. The impact is evident, as indicated by our recent A/B experiment. The test shows that attributed orders grew by 0.52%, and attributed GMS grew by 0.87%. At Ichiba scale, this is quite remarkable. On an annualized basis, this is equivalent to JPY 12.8 billion GMS uplift. The second area is expand. How Rakuten AI can expand where, when, and how we serve our customer needs. This includes engage them earlier in the purchase funnel and also recommend relevant product and services across businesses to dramatically increase cross-use. Specifically, we are embedding Rakuten AI into almost every business applications, not only increasing their capability, but also connect them with the rest of the ecosystem. In addition, we are expanding our touch point through Rakuten AI apps across the first surface area, whether it's mobile apps, on the web, or on the desktop. As web traffic shifts from search to agent, we are very well-positioned to take advantage of this agentic shift to attract new users and increase usage of existing users. Finally, we are also expanding our distribution by bringing Rakuten AI to our partners. As announced in July, Rakuten AI for Desktop is now pre-bundled on Rakuten HP PCs, this will help millions of users easily access the Rakuten ecosystem, leverage the computing power on their AI PC to reduce token cost, and also understand the local context to provide more relevant result. As of today, 17 of all of our services are live with an AI agent, seven more are in the near-term deployment, and more than 50 are on the way. Each agent strengthens its own business and connects with the Rakuten ecosystem, expanding the potential of cross-use across Rakuten. Lastly, the last area is differentiate. As Rakuten AI deeply embeds into each business applications, it can accomplish what other external agent cannot. From first chat to a complete transaction, all the way to delivery in the real world, even providing customer service after purchase. For example, on Ichiba, AI can now help customer to make decision faster, the time to purchase is reduced by 41%, and average order amount up 17%. Customer can understand the decision that they have to make faster and buy with greater confidence. Similarly, on Rakuten Travel, takes customer from discovery to booking in one flow, this is growing rapidly. Rakuten AI for travel launched at the end of April. Now average order is 13% higher for AI-assisted booking versus those are not going through AI. Family and group trip booking are also up 29%. Such family and group tracking is often very complex in nature, this is exactly where AI can help to ease the decision-making. Just last week, we announced Rakuten AI Super Agent at Rakuten AI Optimism Conference. This means three things. First, we double down on cross-use. Rakuten AI Super Agent is about connecting the customer experience across all of our product and services, agent in one part of the ecosystem can hand off to another agent and complete another transaction. Second, we are expanding what agent can do, handling complex task, achieving goals, guiding user on the full journey from discover to purchase across many services. Third, we are connecting Super Agent to third-party services like maps, calendar, email, messengers, it's easier for customer to track, communicate, and plan using their favorite tools and improve their productivity. Lastly, the Super Agent will interact with other external agent on the internet, which is critical to attract more agent traffic for our merchants, hotel, and business partners in the Rakuten ecosystem. I like to show you what a Super Agent can do. Please play the video.

Speaker 2 : This video is about the transformation of Rakuten AI from an AI agent to a Super Agent. Using travel as an example, the Super Agent will find the perfect travel plan and items based on your preferences, complete transactions, and connect with applications outside the Rakuten ecosystem to provide cross-service total solutions.

Ting Cai : To close, is that showing the last slide? Okay. Now to close, to get a preview of the Super Agent, you can download Rakuten AI today. It is available on the web, iOS, Android, and on Windows, and very soon it will come to Mac as well. I like to close by saying this in Japanese, Let's create new values, expand possibilities with AI, and together build a better future. Thank you very much.

Operator : That concludes the report for the consolidated.