Hello to everyone watching. Thank you very much for joining the fiscal year 2026 August 1st quarter presentation. I am Masaru Tange, President and CEO of SHIFT.
I am Kobayashi, a member of the Board of Directors. In today's briefing, I will be discussing the fiscal year 2026 first quarter performance highlights, and afterwards, our CEO Tange will explain our initiatives to enhance our growth trajectory. Once the presentations are finished, we will move on to a question-and-answer session. If you have any questions, please enter your organization name and your name, and write your question in the chat box. Also, we kindly ask that you submit your questions before our presentation concludes, if possible. Now, let's begin the presentation. First, here are the highlights for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. This is the profit and loss statement. As you can see, with our sales target set at 150 billion JPY, our sales this time reached 34.8 billion JPY, which is a progress rate of 23.2%. We are making steady progress toward our goal.
In addition, for the first quarter, anticipating growth from the second quarter onward, we have made proactive investments in recruitment. On top of that, although selling, general, and administrative expenses have increased, we believe that we are now well-prepared for the growth expected from the second quarter onward. Next, let me talk about selling, general, and administrative expenses. In light of our steady business performance, we have continued to actively recruit new employees. Regarding recruitment expenses, compared to 3.8% in the fourth quarter of last year, we have further strengthened our efforts, and in the first half of this year, recruitment expenses accounted for 4.5%. We intend to continue making proactive investments, focusing mainly on recruitment costs. Through these proactive investments, we aim to create significant changes toward achieving our SHIFT 3000 goal.
To bring about this major transformation, we will focus on strengthening our influence, making full use of AI, and actively investing in M&A. First, there are five topics I would like to report to you today. Among them, the improvement of the gross profit margin and the strengthening of sales are ongoing initiatives. I would like to explain these myself. First, let's talk about improving the gross profit margin. Compared to last year, this figure has dropped by 0.7 points. The main reason for this is a decrease in the utilization rate at SHIFT. However, this decline is actually part of our strategic investment. There are two main points. First, regarding consulting, we have focused on assigning new graduates and young employees, providing them with training and opportunities to gain experience. As for this, we already see a recovery starting from December.
The second point is in the development area, where we have made two strategic investments: one in AI-related initiatives and another in hiring young talent for ERP, investing in their training and development. For this as well, we currently expect a recovery. We intend to thoroughly develop AI-driven solutions and ensure that we can provide ample resources to the rapidly growing ERP sector as well. As for the testing area, we have been advancing the sophistication of assignment management, and thanks to this, we are seeing a one-point improvement compared to last year. Since the core testing domain is operating at a high utilization rate, we believe that we have a solid structure in place to maintain this level of activity going forward. Next, I will talk about strengthening our sales capabilities. Since the third quarter of last year, we have been working on reforming our sales capabilities.
First, we recategorized our clients' situations. It is said that there aree over three million companies in Japan, but among them, only 265 companies have annual sales of one trillion yen or more. Out of these 265 companies, SHIFT is currently doing business with 67 of them, which means we have captured a 25.3% share. I believe we are on the right track of penetrating this market. Regarding these clients with annual sales of over one trillion yen, we intend to allocate sufficient sales and delivery resources to them and work to further expand our business with them. On the other hand, if we look at companies with less than one trillion yen in sales, especially those with sales of over 50 billion yen, it is said that there are about 3,500 such companies in Japan.
Among them, we currently do business with 352 companies, which is a market share of 10%, so there is still plenty of room for growth. To move forward in this area, we are currently having our younger staff work on developing new business. For clients with annual revenues of less than 1 trillion JPY, to whom we provide a single service, we have a proven track record of being able to move from the initial contact to generating revenue in as little as under one month. Starting with these kinds of clients, we want to make sure they become fully aware of SHIFT's services and then expand into cross-selling. We define clients for whom we are able to cross-sell and provide multiple services as being in the fourth quadrant. We have allocated a significant portion of our sales resources to this area.
As a result, we have been able to acquire clients generating over JPY 20 million in monthly sales in about 5.2 months from the initial visit. By reallocating our sales force in this way, we have been able to drive strong sales growth. Regarding the sales activities for each of these segments, first, as a characteristic, in the third quadrant, where the market size is less than JPY 1 trillion, and we provide a single service. We are also stepping up the hiring of sales personnel. The average lead time from a new salesperson joining SHIFT to securing their first order is a short 2.3 months, and we have now established a system that enables newly hired sales staff to generate an average of JPY 370 million in revenue.
As a result, we are able to help young talent in the third quadrant get up to speed quickly and steadily acquire new clients in key areas. And we plan to further expand by connecting to the fourth quadrant through cross-selling. As for the salespeople belonging to this fourth quadrant, their average annual income is about JPY 10 million. By strengthening recruitment in this area, we believe we can ensure a sufficient number of sales staff. By ensuring we have enough sales staff, we believe we can further expand our client base, which currently has only a 10% share, and connect this to our continued growth. On the other hand, regarding the first quadrant, our large-scale clients with over JPY 1 trillion, we feel that, at present, it's still mostly handled by our younger staff.
For these clients, we plan to assign salespeople who have gained experience and grown in the third and fourth quadrants, so we can ensure solid expansion. Also, since our average annual income is still relatively low, by raising it, we aim to attract even more talented salespeople. In this way, for all quadrants, we now have a clear vision of what kind of people we should hire and develop for our sales team. We intend to thoroughly systematize and structure our sales operations as we aim for further expansion. With these kinds of sales reforms progressing, regarding our standalone sales revenue, as I mentioned, in all aspects, we now have a clear idea of what kind of people we should hire and develop for our sales team. We are committed to thoroughly systematizing and structuring our sales operations as we aim for further expansion.
With these kinds of sales reforms progressing, regarding our sales revenue of SHIFT itself, we expect the growth rate for the second quarter to land at around 122%-124%. In terms of sales amount, this averages about JPY 25 billion. This trend is still continuing, and for the third quarter, based on our current sales projections, we expect to reach over JPY 26 billion. We expect to achieve year-on-year growth of 120%-125%. These sales reforms have been ongoing since the third quarter of last year, and since they have steadily produced results, we are now looking to drive a shift toward further expansion and growth. We are also starting to see similar trends in our key performance indicators.
The year-on-year decline in revenue, which we had previously viewed as a challenge, is now showing signs of recovery, and in the second quarter in particular, we are seeing a significant improvement. Regarding project unit prices, it may appear that they temporarily dropped in the first quarter. This is due to seasonal factors. In 2023, we introduced an account manager system, which led to an increase in clients in the first and second quarters mentioned earlier. The trend of larger-scale projects continues to persist. We intend to maintain this growth rate and continue to drive expansion steadily. As for our sales reforms, we have started to see results, so by continuing these efforts, we believe we can achieve even greater growth. From here on, Tange will report on our initiatives for further growth. Now, I would like to explain our efforts to enhance our growth trajectory.
First, I have outlined our strategy here. Traditionally, in the world of system integration, acquiring a client project of development in core systems has been extremely important. As part of that strategy, including major system integrators, consulting firms have used consulting methods to obtain RFPs and, in turn, win core system projects. Of course, we also aim to secure RFPs from the very upstream consulting phase. Furthermore, within this core system market, which is worth 12 trillion JPY, we have developed our own unique methods to win projects through proprietary services. One example, as we've mentioned before, is our founding focus on the testing industry. By leveraging testing, we are now steadily able to acquire RFPs based on our expertise in peripheral business operations and then move into the core system projects. On the other hand, our initiatives involving AI have recently been accelerating.
In terms of modernizing legacy systems in development, we are utilizing AI, what we call Modernization with AI services. With these services, we are also starting to acquire RFP projects. By using these two approaches, we are working to win core system projects. Of course, the market for these peripheral systems alone is about JPY 4 trillion, and in that area, we use agile methodologies, which is our strongest suit when it comes to development methods. In addition, the surrounding BPO market is estimated to be around JPY 40 trillion. Looking at this from a broader perspective, if we were to compare Japan to a single corporation, Japan Incorporated is in a situation where it is difficult to grow its top line. With the population continuing to decline, selling, general, and administrative expenses are also increasing.
As a result, there is growing demand to reduce SG&A by outsourcing various functions, such as sales support and a wide range of back-office operations. With the aim of efficiently capturing these needs through the use of AI, we are advancing our BPIOS initiative. Leveraging this approach, we plan to continue expanding into a broad range of adjacent business opportunities. This time, we would like to change the direction of our financial results briefing. Up until now, including development and testing, we have reported our financial results by dividing them into segments, but we feel that these segments alone do not fully capture our business. Therefore, we are now considering reporting by dividing our business into four main segments. To be specific, as we reported in the full-year financial results announcement for last fiscal year: consulting, development, testing, and BPIOS.
These are the four main businesses through which we intend to represent ourselves. Specifically, as shown here, we have set a target of JPY 150 billion for this year, and the breakdown is listed here. Also, regarding Q1, we have achieved about JPY 34.8 billion, which is a progress rate of 23.2%. In terms of year-on-year growth, that's plus 15.5%. Breaking it down further, consulting accounts for JPY 3.8 billion and development for JPY 12.2 billion. In testing, we were able to generate JPY 15.1 billion and in BPIOS, JPY 900 million. As shown on the right, the market growth for consulting is 9%, but for us, it's 17.3%. For development, the market is growing at 3%, but we are at 11.4%. In testing, the market is growing at 3%, but we have achieved 13.7% growth.
Additionally, while the BPO market isn't growing that much, as a market it's growing by about 2%, we've achieved a 22.4% increase, so I believe we've been able to meet our overachievement targets. By breaking down each segment in this way, we want you to clearly see where we're focusing our efforts and which areas of our business are experiencing growth. Next, one of the major topics we'd like to report on this time is our goal to become an AI-native company. We've been working on this initiative for about a year now, and I'd like to take this opportunity to further explain our strategy regarding this. There's a lot of talk in various markets that our services, including development and test consulting, could be completely overtaken by AI. However, we're not entirely convinced that's the case.
In fact, the demand from our clients remains extremely high, and even now, the more we hire, the more our sales increase. That situation hasn't changed at all. With that in mind, we first conducted a survey to find out what our clients really think about AI and how they want to approach it. What you see here are the results regarding what expectations clients have for utilizing AI in actual system development. Overall, our clients' main need is to use AI to reduce costs. Next, regarding SHIFT, whether clients have expectations for us or not, an impressive 77% of our clients are expecting SHIFT to take initiatives with AI. So, when it comes to AI, will they outsource work to SHIFT? Will they use us as an external contractor or not? Or, even if they plan to cut costs, how exactly do they intend to do that?
Regarding that, our clients estimate that it will still take about three more years. In three years, it's possible that our workload will be reduced or that we might have less work. But with that in mind, since we still have those three years, we are committed to strengthening our internal initiatives. Within SHIFT, we are working on creating various services using AI or making our internal operations more efficient. These are the efforts we are currently undertaking. Through these efforts, this brings us to the fourth and fifth items on the survey: what will happen to the ratio of IT outsourcing? At this point, our clients are saying that about 67% of outsourcing cannot be reduced. Also, there is still a significant shortage of AI talent, so our clients are saying they really want AI professionals.
In that sense, at least for the near future, outsourcing costs are not going down, and our sales are not decreasing either. In this situation, there is a strong need for AI talent, so for us, I believe the demand is quite strong. Additionally, thanks to our efficient AI initiatives, even if our clients do manage to reduce their outsourcing costs, we are working on ways to use AI to increase the gross profit margin of our services under the situation. I would like to explain more about that later as well. With that in mind, we have summarized our thoughts on how to effectively utilize AI and what kinds of companies will truly survive in this AI-driven world into what we call the three principles of AI utilization.
There are many different ways to utilize AI, but fundamentally, I believe the most important aspects are planning ability, deciding what to create, AI technology, making full use of AI capabilities, and the ability to implement it on the ground, what we call field penetration. These three elements are extremely important. As I will explain in more detail shortly, our annual sales related to AI have already reached about JPY 7 billion. Even within that JPY 7 billion of sales, there are still very few cases where all three of these elements, planning ability, AI technology, and field penetration, are fully aligned with client needs or actual results. Most cases are still at the so-called POC, proof of concept, level. I think our clients are currently in a phase where they want to try out various AI initiatives.
In particular, when we look at our clients, some want to use AI as a technology, what you might call a gadget-driven approach, or they want to use AI, but the way to use it or the planning aspect is missing. In these cases, only the AI technology and field penetration are being utilized, without the planning component. There are also cases where only minor improvements can be made. Additionally, there are services where the desire to use AI, simply because it's such a great technology, gets ahead of everything else. Even though the AI technology itself is solid, it doesn't penetrate the field at all. On the other hand, speaking about ourselves, our total sales are about JPY 34.8 billion, and the proportion of sales from AI is JPY 1.76 billion. If we project this for the full year, it amounts to about JPY 7 billion.
Even with JPY 70 billion, we are by no means satisfied, so for the full year, we are working toward a goal of reaching JPY 10 billion in fiscal year 2026. In terms of our progress, as I mentioned earlier, we have divided our segments into consulting, development, testing, and BPIOS. I believe that AI can be applied at any phase, including consulting. However, where we are currently making significant progress is in development and testing. Regarding these two areas, we already have services in place and the proof of concept has been completed, so I believe we are now in the phase of practical application. One of our initiatives in this area is that, in terms of development, we have built a modernization with AI service. We explained this thoroughly in last year's full-year announcement as well.
For core systems created with legacy systems, our AI automatically scans the source code and then automatically generates an RFP from it. After migrating to the cloud, we break down native services into microservices using AI and then have AI write the source code again. This is the kind of service we have launched. Today, for example, the development period, which used to take about 13 months, can now be completed in around 9 months. Or, in terms of man-hours, what used to require about 100 person-months can now be done in about half of that, around 55 person-months. Also, in terms of sales, for example, with the traditional approach, it would cost the client about 140 million JPY per project.
Even with our previous methods, we could only achieve about 40% of that, but by using this AI modernization service, we were able to build a system where our gross profit could be reduced by 60% without significantly lowering sales. After spending about half a year promoting this, we were able to secure opportunities with clients worth around JPY 4 billion. So, moving forward, we want to continue to reliably generate this kind of sales through these efforts. On the other hand, regarding our testing initiatives, we've also achieved significant results. The work involved in testing is divided into test design and test execution. Over the course of a year, we handle about 5,000 projects. Each project is worth around JPY 10 million, so in terms of sales, that's about JPY 50 billion.
For a JPY 10 million project, test design takes about two months, and test execution also takes about two months as a result. Currently, it takes about four months to complete. However, with our AI initiatives, the duration has been drastically reduced, down to just 0.8 months and 0.4 months. So, what used to take four months can now be finished in 1.2 months. In terms of man-hours, what used to require 10 person-months can now be completed with just three person-months. This means we've been able to achieve significant efficiency improvements, as confirmed through our proof of concept. As a result, our production capacity can be tripled. We can also handle about 16,000 projects instead of just 5,000 projects.
For example, even for a job worth around JPY 10 million, from the client's perspective, we can make it easier for them to pay JPY 2 million, and we can handle the rest for JPY 8 million. Moreover, since we can work more efficiently, we can turn it into a job where we achieve a 60% in gross profit margin. This demonstrates that even test projects can be made highly productive through AI. We would like to thoroughly implement this approach for all of our projects. Let me also explain about our recruitment. Regarding hiring, we are actively increasing the number of consultants and engineers, and currently, we have 13,687 members who have joined us. Among them, the ability to utilize AI is becoming extremely important. We have also calculated our AI utilization rate. About 90% of our members are able to effectively use AI.
Furthermore, we have approximately 792 AI engineers, so we believe we have members who can not only implement AI but also develop it in depth within our organization. There is a common concern that AI might take away jobs, so people wonder if it's really okay to keep hiring as we are. This is something we have addressed ourselves. We break down the work into categories: jobs that people should do, jobs that AI can handle, and jobs that inevitably remain. We believe there are always some tasks that will remain. Here, we are referring to things like BPO, testing, development, consulting, and also back office operations. That's how we see it. The areas shown in blue are the ones that will likely be replaced by AI. The white areas are labeled as AI institutions. These are the areas where we believe AI can perform tasks more efficiently.
On the other hand, the yellow areas represent tasks that require human judgment, and these are the ones that will inevitably remain. Or, they might be jobs that only humans can do. Traditionally, through our CAT certification exams, we have hired members who have a wide range of capabilities and can handle any kind of work that comes their way. There will always be jobs that require a human touch or tasks that need the kind of judgment represented by the yellow areas. We hire our members so that they can perform at any stage. So, in that sense, I believe that AI can also change the career stages of our members. What I want to convey here is that since we have members with such capabilities, we don't think they will simply be replaced by AI.
Also, thanks to AI, we have members with expertise in various business areas, consulting, development, testing, and AI technology. We are fortunate to have been able to hire these highly important core members. Additionally, at the end of last year, we released a book called SHIFT Dissection. Through that, people have been saying that we might be the number one company in human capital management. We are firmly utilizing AI. I believe we are building a company system and human capital based on that. Including this, we have received various awards from different industries, so I feel that we are truly able to make use of talented, dynamic personnel. Finally, I'd like to talk about our investment and M&A strategy. This time, I would like to announce that we have been able to carry out a large-scale M&A.
Currently, there is a company called Nissei Holdings, which has sales of about JPY 49.5 billion, and from within that group, we are carving out a company called Nisseacom, which is engaged in some system development and proceeding with an M&A. To give you specific numbers, Nisseacom has sales of JPY 20.9 billion and an operating profit of JPY 1.5 billion. In terms of their business activities, they mainly focus on their own software packages. This company, which handles development, maintenance, and operations centered on their own packages, will be joining SHIFT Group. To break down the details of their business, out of the JPY 20.9 billion in sales, about JPY 4.2 billion comes from their software packages. These are extremely powerful packages, including ERP, HR, payroll, and sales management systems, packages that support business operations.
They have a strong presence in universities and the public sector, and their systems have a very high retention rate. Building on that foundation, as you can see, they have about 1.8 billion JPY in custom development projects built from scratch for mid-sized companies, and including those packages, they handle around 8 billion JPY worth of maintenance and operations work. One of Nisseacom's key strengths is their extensive client base. In manufacturing, they serve about 700 companies, in distribution, about 1,100 companies, and in the public sector, their core systems have been implemented in 91 organizations, capturing roughly 50% market share in those industries. In the healthcare division, their core system also provides solutions for health insurance, serving 49 organizations and 880,000 members. Having such a package that delivers these kinds of solutions is a significant strength for the company.
What I'd like you to know is that a company with highly stable revenue joined SHIFT Group. Up until now, SHIFT has acquired companies with an EBITDA multiple of less than five times, and in terms of sales, companies with an average scale of about JPY 2 billion, and we have a track record of growing our sales this way. Now, what's a bit different with Nisseacom is that their sales are JPY 20 billion, which is about 10 times larger, and in terms of this acquisition's EBITDA, it's about nine times, so according to our EBITDA discipline, which is below eight times, this slightly exceeds that. However, there are some very interesting points about this M&A. Since they have solid sales, those sales are already coming directly from end users, so the focus will be on growing that further.
Also, because this is a company with a long history, their selling, general, and administrative expenses ratio is quite high, so I think there is room for improvement in that area. If we can control those costs and make operations more efficient, we believe we can steadily increase operating profit from JPY 1.5 billion- JPY 2.5 billion, or even up to JPY 3.5 billion. We believe that we can achieve this, which is why we think this is a very attractive M&A opportunity. If we can make those improvements, the EBITDA multiple will come down to below 6 times, so we think this M&A will fit our usual criteria. Also, by pursuing this M&A, up until now, we have only been introduced to deals with sales of around JPY 2 billion.
Speaking in terms of annual numbers, there are about 200 M&A deals in the system integrator industry each year, but we have only been able to do about five of them annually, meaning there were 195 deals we couldn't access. However, now those 195 companies are within our reach, and if you understand that this shift allows us to reach a scale of 20 billion yen, a variety of deals will come our way. Alternatively, if we can successfully manage post-merger integration to keep attrition low, we can ensure that the EBITDA multiples also stay within our target range, which means this could become a very significant M&A initiative for us. Secondly, as another major announcement this time, we are planning to conduct a share buyback. Recently, we feel that our market capitalization is much lower than what we believe it should be.
We have been steadily growing our top line and increasing our operating profit, yet our market cap remains too low in our view. In that sense, we are considering a buyback of up to about 3%, or a maximum of JPY 10 billion. Looking at this from a broader perspective, as I mentioned earlier with Nisseacom and their M&A activities, and also considering that SHIFT, as a company, could potentially become a target for M&A within the industry, we believe our shares are undervalued. That's why we want to firmly buy back our shares at this stage. In the future, we can use these shares in various ways, such as through share exchanges, among other methods. There are many possible uses. For now, we plan to hold them as treasury stock and keep them on hand.
As I mentioned earlier, this refers to Nisseacom and the outlook for the PL and BS after the spin-off. Traditionally, according to our current plans for 2026, we are projecting sales of about JPY 150 billion and adjusted operating profit of about JPY 20 billion, with an adjusted EPS of JPY 51.3. However, if we proceed with the M&A and share buybacks I mentioned earlier, with the current outlook for fiscal year 2026, this is still based on the goal of incorporating Nisseacom from April onward. If we can achieve that, sales will reach JPY 158.6 billion. Adjusted operating profit will also reach JPY 20.7 billion, and adjusted EPS will improve significantly to JPY 53. In addition, on the balance sheet, goodwill will increase from JPY 10.2 billion- JPY 25.4 billion.
Of course, this is an increase, but the ratio of goodwill to net assets will still be 59.7%, so I believe we are still in a safe zone. The debt-equity ratio will rise from 0.2 times to 0.8 times, but I also think this remains within a safe range. So, I believe that we will be able to finish 2026 with a solid and well-structured balance sheet and profit and loss statement. Finally, I'd like to give an update on our progress toward SHIFT 2000 and SHIFT 3000. This time, it looks like we'll be able to increase our 2026 sales from JPY 150 billion to about JPY 158.6 billion. With our sales target set at JPY 200 billion, we are capable to grow sales by about JPY 20 billion per year.
As I've mentioned, this is possible even organically, and if we do the math, it seems likely that we could achieve SHIFT 2000 in about two years by 2028. That's what I'm thinking, and as for gross profit, we've set a conservative target of around 35%. The SG&A ratio is also set at 20%, and I believe that by leveraging AI, we can significantly improve this ratio. So, with an SG&A ratio of 20% and after adjustments, I think we'll be able to achieve an operating profit of about JPY 30 billion by 2028. Also, regarding our goal of SHIFT 3000, I've outlined a breakdown here: the breakdown of consulting, development, test, and BPIOS for SHIFT 2000, the breakdown of gross profit for that, and for SHIFT 3000, the breakdown of sales and gross profit by the segments I mentioned earlier.
We've set our sights on achieving this by 2030, and we're committed to making it happen. So, when it comes to consulting, there's a very strong demand, so I believe we can reliably achieve both sales and gross profit in consulting. As for our efforts with BPIOS, by leveraging our initiatives in AI and the operational expertise we've built up over time, I think we can achieve sales of, say, JPY 17 billion and a gross profit margin of 40%. I believe this kind of approach is possible. If we can do this, I think we can definitely achieve a SHIFT 3000. As for us, we are firmly on track to reach the sales and profit targets we've set for the first quarter of 2026. Throughout the year, we intend to steadily increase both sales and profits. We hope you will continue to support us moving forward.
That concludes my report on the first quarter financial results. Thank you very much for your attention today.