Kao Corp Ord (KAOCF) Q3 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Now please turn to page 5 of the materials. These are the key highlights. To summarize the first three quarters of the fiscal year, I can say that K-27 has progressed as planned. The effects of the structural reforms, which were our major target for fiscal 2024, have become clear, and the competitive advantages of our core brands improved. By actively implementing capital efficiency improvement measures, ROIC improved by 4.9 percentage points year-on-year. For structural reforms, we entrenched earning power improvement by shifting to manufacturing that enhances value Also, we have achieved revitalization through measures such as speeding up decision-making with scrum-type organization, and we have also seen the effects of career support. In our core brands, we are continuing to expand the trend of improving profit margins and increasing market share at the same time. One example of this is our entry into the premium hair care market in Japan, launching The Answer as the second new brand following Melt. It has made a good start. This can also be said to be the result of our Scrum-type organization. We also upgraded our marketing methods, including using DX to visualize progress in establishing loyal users. With these measures, we firmly establish the foundations of our earning power and we ramp up global rollout of high-value added products. That is a basic strategy of K27. Its focal areas include skin protection, the six focal cosmetics plants, Oribe products for hair salons in the Americas and Europe, and the highly functional chemicals. I'd like to touch on the progress of these areas a little at the end. In the chemical business, we are responding to market recovery with expansion of high-value added products and growing as we improve operating margin by 1.6 point...