Now we'd like to start the briefing session for Q1 of the fiscal year ending February 2024. First of all, let me talk about the initiatives we're working on to enhance our corporate value. Our philosophy, improve the society with dream, idea, and passion. One of the social issues is the wage. Wage has not been rising for long time in Japan. About 18 months ago, we started to work on this initiative to encourage the business owners to raise the salary. We've been working on this project under the name of dip Incentive Project. We've been advertising this initiative as well, our salespeople have been convincing the business owners it's going to be beneficial for them as well to raise the wages. Thanks to this daily effort, we've been able to bear fruit.
As I explained before, the user side evaluation is going to be of course higher if the pay is going to be higher. Actually, the client side as well, they have been well accepting this dip Incentive Project. As an initiative to improve the society, now we are working on the second initiative, which is to do away with this age bias. As you know, Japan is facing this labor shortage situation, and with the age restriction, sometimes there are people who are not being able to get the job only because the person does not meet this age, the guideline. That has been leading to missing job opportunities, which should be considered as waste. We should do away with this age discrimination or bias. We've been asking business owners that please do not restrict the ages.
Those companies who are supporting this idea, the ratio is now already 46%, so close to half, and they are supporting this idea. They are no longer forcing people to input their age when they apply for the job. We thought that senior people are going to well accept this idea, and of course, that has been the case. Actually, young generation as well, those people in their twenties, they have been highly evaluating this initiative as well. We've been feeling that following this trend on SDGs, the society itself, the mindset has been changing, which should be a good trend. We'd like to further accelerate the speed to further promote this trend. We'd like to keep on working on this initiative.
Next is the media service business, advertisement as one of the new initiatives right now. What should we call them? Vocaloid. We've been collaborating with Vocaloid to have this Baitoru theme song. Vocaloid has composed the music and which is becoming a big hit. YouTube, the count of view was six million within the first two weeks. A lot of people have been listening to this theme music. Actually with TikTok, the number of views reached 10 million during the first three days. We've been able to enjoy very high advertising effect. Moving on to the signage side. In Osaka, in Umeda, there is an area called Umeda which has very high traffic, and now we have this 3D signage.
dip VISION is the name we are naming this signage. Starting from July, we have our advertisement on this signage board. Now, COVID-19 has been stabilizing, so increasing number of events being held. Under such an environment, real physical is one of our important themes as well. We've been sponsoring physical or sporting events and our live events. Thanks to these promotional activities as well, the number of app download, we are being the absolutely number one. The number of MAU, the number of monthly active users, for the first time, we are being able to become the number one. The most important KPI for us is the number of applications, which has been rising significantly, trending very well. Media evaluation. Hatarako. net has been able to win the number one Oricon customer satisfaction based on app friendliness, easy to search, et cetera.
This year, one of the target areas is the further strengthening the permanent placement business, especially from now on, Japan is facing this aging society, and medical and nursing care areas are going to keep growing. We would like to be the number one here as well. We would like to be the number one in terms of net sales, but high efficiency, high profitability is another area we are aiming to be the number one. Because our strength is, again, the fact we do have the media, job advertisement business. We have Baitoru NEXT, Hatarako. net, et cetera. We have medical nursing care job advertising here. By strengthening both the media and permanent placement business, we should be able to be stronger than the others. Typically, these agency business, clients do pay a lot to these agencies.
By making investment in our own website, we would like to enjoy higher profit on a midterm basis. Another initiatives we are working on this year is DX business. Till now, hiring related KOBOTs we've been developing and selling, which are continuously performing well. Now we have started to focus on customer attraction area as well. As a new product, we have signed up OEM contract with Bestal, company called Bestal, and we are planning to release a new customer attraction KOBOT. Social media and Google Maps, this service is their service. Bestal's service is very strong with social media and Google Maps. By leveraging the capability they have, we should be able to come up with a new KOBOT which is going to be strongly supporting our clients.
One of the most important themes this year is going to be AI agent business, and let me talk about the progress. Usually, these kind of service, it tends to be delayed compared to the original plan, but we are being able to make a good progress. During the current fiscal year, we were saying, but now we can tell you during this calendar year, meaning that three months earlier than expected, we are expecting to release this new service. This year, we have hired more than 600 new grads, and now we are promoting to use AI as much as possible. By doing so, productivity should be improving. By further improving our productivity, maybe we can revisit the number of new grads we are going to hire in the future.
Next year, the number of new grads is going to be approximately half compared to this year. We are expecting to hire approximately 350 next year. In the meantime, we're going to further enhance our productivity to further improve our profitability. On a midterm basis. We are aiming to enhance the sales productivity among our media salespeople by 80% compared to now. To achieve this goal, we are going to use more and more AI technologies in the future. I've been able to tell you that the AI agent business is going to be released three months earlier than expected. This is something we've been working on together with Matsuo Laboratory. As the head of DIP's Technology Research Institute, we are welcoming Mr. Chikashi Okamoto. He's going to be the head of DIP's Technology Research Institute.
Mr. Okamoto used to work at Hitachi, and he was getting involved with AI research and development initiatives. He was the leader, and he also has experiences in venture capitals as the head of AI division. I'm sure he's going to be able to exercise the expertise he has at DIP.
That's Shidachi. From myself, I would like to report on the consolidated performance of the Q1 and annual forecast, and give you the progress on the DX business as well. For the Q1 results on a consolidated basis, I have highlighted them, but I would like to skip the highlight and start explaining from the next page. For both sales and operating profit, we are progressing in line with the initial plan. Sales, compared to the previous year, grew by 13.6% and ended at JPY 14 billion. OP grew by 5.8% to JPY 3.3 billion. Both our personnel recruiting business and DX business are steadily growing in sales.
On the other hand, the OP did not grow as much as the sales growth. The decline of the profit was that we have more than 600 new graduate joining in the H1, and there's less contribution to sales by the new graduates. At the same time, the existing sales are spending time to train and educate those new graduates and were not able to spend time in negotiations, and I think that was the impact. That was initially assumed starting from the beginning of the year. In the H2, we expect the new graduates to wrap up and start contributing to the sales.
The workload of the existing sales can be secured and therefore, we are expecting OP to grow solidly in the H2. I hope that you will keep your expectations. As a result of that, in the H2, the OPR margin is expected to grow to 30% in the H2. I would like to explain about the SGA. With regards to the ads and promotion costs, the promotion that was explained by Mr. Tomita and the other initiatives are working well, and we have been able to drive the productivity. The ads and promotion cost ratio went down by 2.2 percentage points.
On the other hand, the 612 new graduates joined the company, and because of that, the personal cost ratio has gone up. However, as I have explained just now, the new graduates will start contributing to the sales. With that, the personal cost ratio should come down from 33%- 32%. Will go down to 32%-30%. We say that it takes three years for the new graduates to become fully capable. Of the 612, we have 516 salespersons.
Two years later, once they become fully capable, in February of 2026, these 516 people will definitely deliver the sales, and they should be able to deliver around JPY 10 billion in annual sales. This prior investment should be realized by thorough training and education of those new graduates. Now I would like to move on and talk about the forecast for the year ending February 2024. There's no change in the forecast that we announced in April, I would like to skip the explanation. Now I would like to give you the overview and the progress of the DX cloud business.
The overview of the DX business is shown on page one and page two. That has not changed, so I would like to skip the explanation and jump to page three. I would like to explain about the characteristics of the DX KOBOT series. The organization of the DX business, the service officer was changed in February. That was already communicated. Underneath this new organization, once again, towards the SMB, so we want to make it more easier to use for the product. We're trying to simplify the function of the product and refine the products even more. We have been working on that, and we have added that onto this page.
By doing so, the characteristics of which was customer success, meaning that we have very heavy customer service to our customers. By refining the product, the customer service will no longer be required. By refining those simple part functionality, we want to improve the service level. By evolving the product, the customer support will no longer be required, and the cost structure will be stronger. That's how we want to develop the product, and that's why we have changed the characteristics of the product as it's shown here. Next page shows the lineup. In the fall, we will introduce the MEO KOBOT, the SNS Booster KOBOT will be added. I would like to skip the explanation of this page.
I would like to talk about the performance of the Q1. Compared to the previous year, the sales grew by +29%, so we are continuing with a very good growth. Recently we're seeing some acceleration of the growth, and that is because the media job ads are performing well, and along with that, the interview scheduling KOBOT sales are doing well, and that is a major reason. I would like to talk about the number of companies subjected to monthly billing, and that has increased by 24% year-on-year, and we're seeing a very steady growth. Similar to sales, we're starting to see some acceleration. Now I would like to move on and talk about the KPIs for the Q1 results.
Right now we have revised the KPI target upward, that is because the recent performance is trending quite well. On top of that, in order to make it easier to sell for the sales, we are developing a new functionality to the existing products. From this quarter onwards, for the KPIs, rather than disclosing the month for the quarter end, but instead we are showing the quarterly average. The reason is that the interview scheduling KOBOT is impacted a lot due to the fluctuation of the job ads. In order for you to understand the KPI trend more correctly, instead of the monthly numbers, we decided that the quarterly average will be easier to understand.
I hope you would understand the change. Moving on, I would like to talk about the strategy for this quarter. I would like to talk about the strategy under this new organization. We will be refining the existing products, and at the same time, we will be developing new products in the new areas in the promotion like MEO KOBOTs for SNS Booster. Also we will work on improving the sales efficiency. For KOBOT, the strength was that the client will have to spend the efforts for the implementation. For implementation, we needed to have our sales reps spending a lot of efforts to help the clients introduce it.
By reducing the efforts of the sales rep by improving the products, we should be able to accelerate the sales even more because we can free up the time for our sales reps and focus more on Media sales and DX sales, and that would be a positive impact on the products, and we should focus more on the upsell. Lastly, for DX, I would like to talk about the business plan for this fiscal year. There is no change in the sales and segment profit forecast. As I mentioned before, this plan is a conservative plan, and obviously, we would like to target for something higher for this fiscal year as well. For this fiscal year, we are working on many new products.
From next fiscal year onwards, we should be able to go back to the 30% level of annual growth. I hope you would look forward to that. Once again, I would like to explain about the personnel recruiting business progress. The sales of the personnel recruiting business grew by 12.2% year-on-year to JPY 12.6 billion. This is growing steadily. Now I would like to talk about the media job advertisement business and the permanent placement service. Instead of showing the sales by site, now we would like to show you the a breakdown by service for both media job advertisement and permanent placement services.
From the previous period, we have applied a new recognition standard, and for the discount of the products that were cross-sold at the same time will be equalized when the revenue is booked. Based on that, for the Q1, we have changed the segment of the sales to align the services so that it is in line with the sales policy. From your perspective, the sales direction and the business will have a stronger correlation when you read our disclosure. I hope you will understand this change. According to this new segmentation, the media job advertisement grew by 12.5% year-on-year.
Permanent placement service grew by 7.0%. I would just like to explain the trend by each site. Baitoru including Baitoru NEXT has exceeded before COVID, for based on the new revenue recognition standard, if that was applied before February 2020, we have exceeded the pre-COVID level. Hatarako. net was pretty much flattish, Hatarako. net was about 2.5 times, which is a significant growth. That was the explanation. For the Q1, I would like to talk about the performance. Starting from the media and job ads, the sales grew by 12.5% to JPY 11.9 billion, which was a very strong growth.
The unique number of companies is steadily growing as well. The contract unit price is solidly growing. I would now like to talk about the priority measures for the Q2. Of the priority measures in the Q2 as a topic, we are working on the draft for ads using AI. By doing this, we want to improve the productivity. By delivering the ad draft that is more aligned with the business owners, we will like to make sure that the seniors and other people will be able to apply more easily. For the other initiatives, there's no change, so I would skip the explanation.
Now I would like to talk about the sales trend for the permanent placement service for the Q1. The sales grew by 7.0% to JPY 690 million. The growth is slowing down a little bit, is due to the new service launch, Kaigo de Hatarako launch, and also the service expansion to the regional areas aside from the metropolitan areas. Those initiatives were introduced. These are the new challenges, and the very capable members are now reassigned to those initiatives. Because of that, the sales look like it's slowing down tentatively. The activities for this period will reach the peak for the permanent placement service.
We believe that this will be a positive trend for next fiscal year. I hope that you would expect the sales increase in the next fiscal year. Now I would like to talk about the priority measures for the permanent placement service for the Q2. We have assigned 87 new graduates to this business. The existing sales reps are educating this, and we're trying to ramp them up quickly so that they can contribute to the sales from next fiscal year. Kaigo de Hatarako service, as I mentioned earlier, has started, and the sales contribution is very small. In terms of gathering the customers from the existing media, we believe this has very strong potential.
I hope that you would look forward to this business. Of course, in improving the service quality, AI will of course be utilized in the permanent placement service too. We want to improve the matching accuracy so that we can improve the overall service quality. Now I would like to talk about the business plan for this business. The sales and segment profit for the personnel recruiting service business will not change. Against the full year plan of 14%, the Q1 sales growth was 12.2%, which is relatively low.
In the H2, the new graduates are expected to contribute to the sales and we expect that an additional JPY 1 billion or so increase in sales in the H2. Therefore, we're not revising the full year plan. That was the explanation from my side. Thank you very much for your attention.
Let me talk about shareholder returns. Dividend forecast, no change. Interim 35 JPY. Year-end 48 JPY. Annually 83 JPY. Share buyback. When we announced the full year results in April, we announced that we were going to conduct share buyback. The purpose is to enhance shareholder value and return to shareholder and improve capital efficiency. We believe that currently our share price is undervalued, and we are confident with our future growth. By repurchasing our shares, we believe that we should be able to return to our shareholders. At each opportunity, we are sharing a video, and this time, we are going to share a video which was shared at the ceremony to welcome the new grads. It's about the activities of senior employees. Please enjoy.
To achieve better society. Our philosophy. Shiori Ota, Agent Business Headquarter, joined DIP in 2020.
There was a nurse in her twenties whom I met in my year two. Coming across with her become a turning point to me. She was searching for a job position at the clinic. She had a track record quitting her previous job only after the first three months. Which left an impression that she might quit soon again and having difficult time to be hired. I was assured that her track record was leading to this bias. To let clients focus more on her personality, I also mentioned her various skills related to nursing and application format, and also mentioned how passionate she is to keep learning new skills and submitted the application format to the clients.
After looking at the application with a lot of information, clients started to say, "Okay, we want to have an interview with her."I do remember how happy and nervous she was when I told her she got the first interview opportunity. I kept encouraging her by telling her we're going to win this job together. Continuously provide support to make the dream come true. The clinic told me they were happy to see her and willing to hire her since they could feel her passion to keep absorbing and learning. I was so happy as if it was me who was hired or even more. By keep focusing on the nurse's real strengths, I believe we could win the job overcoming the bias. To create a society where everyone can strive to attain her dream.
Kimihiko Mizue, Media Business Headquarter, Fukuoka Sales Division, joined DIP in 2021. There was this client paying the minimum wage to the part-timers. The store manager was telling me that that was the max they could afford to pay. I was not being able to ask for more. I was always wanting to be a partner who gets involved with the client's business management. However, I realized that was not something I was being able to achieve. There was more I could do for the client. Decided to change his own mindset to be the real partner. As a recruitment consultant, I decided to start thinking more on a medium-term basis. What is the goals the client is wanting to achieve? What happens if the client does not take on a challenge?
I started to discuss with my clients with that kind of mindset and as a result, I could start having new views and communicating new possibilities to my clients. His boss. I could start feeling he's now functioning as a real consultant. I was hearing from him that now he is attending store managers meeting and sometimes even asked about new store opening plan, which tells me he is winning trust from his clients. I want to see my team providing support to our clients by making proposals, encouraging them to take on new challenges and make a step forward for a better future. Dear new grads who are joining DIP this year, our job is to bridge the users and our clients, and we have to make both sides satisfied, which is difficult. When we can achieve it, we can feel double joy.
This is an amazing job because we can feel we are supporting the society. I hope the new grads keep my the never give up mindset and continuously do their best. Be aware of what you want to achieve and keep taking on new challenges. I'm sure you're going to face a difficult situation and tough time, keep proceeding to the direction you are heading to. Believe in your possibility. Take on new challenges. Each person has his or her own personality, happiness, and life. Your job is to strike the right balance between the user satisfaction and the client satisfaction. That's going to be your job. Think big together. Your own challenge will open the way to the future. Let's proceed.