I'm Kazuhiro Ogura, the CEO of HENNGE. Thank you for watching our video today. Today, our Director, Haruo Amano, will explain our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 and progress of full-year forecasts. Then I will explain our growth strategy and give my impression for this quarter.
Hi, I'm Haruo Amano. First, let me explain financial results for the first quarter of FY 2024. This is the summary of our consolidated financial results. Results of the first quarter: progressing well against the full-year forecast, which was withdrawn on November 10, 2023. Our quarterly trends for consolidated net sales, as is shown in the slide. Sales for HENNGE One business are composed of recurring revenue, and it is continuously on an increasing trend quarter-over-quarter. Year-on-year fluctuations for consolidated net sales, as is shown in the slide. Sales for HENNGE One business shows a steady progress year-on-year. Our quarterly trends for gross profit and gross profit margin are, as shown in the slide. Year-on-year fluctuations for gross profit and gross profit margin are, as shown in the slide.
Although there were some increases in infrastructure costs for HENNGE One, mainly from exchange rate fluctuations and security enhancement, as well as the number of R&D members which led to higher cost of sales, the gross profit margin increased as a result of higher ARPU. We consider our gross profit margin still remains high. Our year-on-year fluctuation of operating expenses by nature, as is shown in the slide. Cost of sales increased mainly due to the increased infrastructure costs for HENNGE One, as a result of exchange rate fluctuations and security enhancement, and the increased R&D members. Personnel expenses increased mainly due to an increase in the number of employees and the introduction of allowance for sales members in April 2023. Advertising expenses decreased despite continued active efforts, such as focusing on activities aimed at strengthening relationships with resellers.
For the other SG&A, it increased due to additional internal system usage fees, consolidating increased employees, and an increase in transportation expenses due to increased face-to-face activities. The chart in the slide shows quarter-on-quarter fluctuation of operating expenses. Personnel expenses decreased slightly despite a steady progress in recruiting, due to a combination of one-off factors such as bonus adjustments associated with the former employees who left the company, and a decrease in other special bonuses. Advertising expenses decreased despite continued active efforts, such as focusing on activities aimed at strengthening relationships with resellers. The other SG&A decreased mainly due to differences in the approaches that have been applied from the previous quarter in recruitment-related expenses, despite active recruiting activities. This chart shows quarterly trends in the net sales and operating expenses. The bar chart shows operating expenses, and the red line chart shows net sales.
Both charts are expressed in the same scale, and the gap between the bar chart and line chart shows operating income. Over the last few quarters, the growth in net sales has been increasing year by year more than the growth in operating expenses. We can see that our business model is becoming more stable to generate more profits. We can also see that, while net sales have been steadily increasing, quarterly operating income and loss have fluctuated depending on the timing of spending on operating expenses, especially advertising expenses. The market needs long-term continuing to grow more and more. In the first quarter, progress in operating income has fast-paced when you compare with the full-year forecast, but we will continue to invest for the future business growth in the second quarter and beyond.
The number of employees and its breakdown by function as of the end of the first quarter of FY 2024, as is shown in the pie chart. The transition in the number of employees is, as shown in the bar chart. We are aiming to increase more than 50 headcounts in net quarters fiscal year, and we have a net increase of four in this quarter. In order to achieve the initial plan, we will build a more solid organization by enhancing our talent acquisition continuity. Now I will explain our business activities during this quarter. This is an overview of our business highlights. We have been conducting various advertising activities in this quarter as well, and we feel that the amount of activity is increasing. Although the targets, methods, durations, and scales of events vary, we held approximately 40 events during this quarter.
To explain in more detail, we held events to strengthen relationships with resellers and joined events with resellers for customer acquisition. Other than that, we promoted activities based on our policies for this fiscal year, such as participating in events aimed at raising awareness of HENNGE. We will carry out a variety of advertising activities that will continue to accelerate our growth going forward. Next, I would like to explain our results of KPIs. This slide shows the progress of KPIs for HENNGE One from the previous fiscal year. This slide shows the year-on-year fluctuation of KPIs for HENNGE One. This slide shows the average monthly churn rate. The conventional reasons for the cancellation bar, because the IT system was unified into a different system due to the merger of companies, or the cloud migration plan itself was reconsidered.
Reasons for cancellations during the quarter were similar to the previous cases, and no major change in the trend has been observed. As of now, it is continuously very low, and the theoretical average contract period is more than 25 years. This slide shows the quarterly trends in the number of contracted companies and users. We have steadily acquired contracts with relatively mid- to small-sized companies as we continue to strengthen relationships with resellers. As a result, the number of new contracted companies increased steadily. However, the number of contracted users has shown a slight increase compared to the previous quarter due to cancellations by relatively large companies. The quarterly trends in ARR and ARPU are shown in the slide.
Although there was almost no impact from the plan migration for existing customers, which had been implemented up to the previous fiscal year, ARPU increased due to steady progress in acquiring new customers. In addition, the steady progress in the number of contracted companies and ARPU led to an increase in ARR for this quarter. Next, turning to our full-year outlook for FY 2024. This slide shows our policy for FY 2024 that is to accelerate mid-term growth in HENNGE One ARR, continuously developing new features and services, providing them to customers, and building a more solid organization by enhancing our talent acquisition continuity. As for HENNGE One business, we aim to sustain annual growth of more than 20% for ARR by increasing the number of contracted companies and ARPU.
As for the marketing investments, we will carry out various advertising activities, such as joint events with resellers, in order to capture the demand for security that increases year by year. We will also hold various events to raise awareness of HENNGE. As for the personnel plan, we will actively recruit in each function and aim to achieve 50 headcount increase in net. We will also aim to promote recruitment with a view to building an organization which enables us to create higher value. In addition, following last year, we will keep considering various actions which can contribute to enhancing our talent acquisition continuity. This slide shows our full-year forecast for FY 2024. There is no change in the forecast because this closed on November 10, 2023.
This chart shows the transition of our sales by business over the last three years and the progress of the first quarter against the forecast for FY 2024. Results of the first quarter are overall on track. This chart shows the transition of advertising expenses and operating expenses, excluding advertising expenses, over the last three years and the progress of the first quarter against the forecast for FY 2024. Regarding operating expenses, excluding advertising expenses, we consider that building and strengthening an organization that enables us to create a higher value is a key to further scale our business. Therefore, we are currently planning to take various actions after the second quarter, such as expanding our office in order to have more interpersonal communication and collaboration. Moreover, securing an environment to continuously provide high-value-added services with high reliability is another key for our business.
In order to make this happen, we are planning to continue investing in, such as for enhancement of HENNGE One's security. These are only examples, and our investment won't be limited only to these areas. We are exploring a range of opportunities for further growth, and it assists to continue in the second quarter and beyond.
Finally, please let me explain our growth strategy. Our corporate philosophy is "Liberation of Technology". We believe in the power of technology, we love technology, and we strongly believe that technology will make our lives better. We want to deliver the power of technology to as many people as we can and to change the world to be a better place. We established HENNGE more than 25 years ago, and since then, we set our philosophy as "Liberation of Technology", which we actually have demonstrated in various areas. From the experience we gained, we think that software as a service is the most fair and sophisticated approach to liberate technologies. This is one of the reasons why we're providing software as a service, and we want to promote the use of cloud services among our customers as well.
Total amount of technology that we provide to the customers and total amount of liberated technology are the measure to prove our progress on our philosophy, and this is expressed as LTV. LTV, or Lifetime Value, is a total value arising from the current contracts with the customers. Our growth strategy is to maximize this LTV. Maximizing LTV, that is, by seeking to maximize the total gross profit earned over the future, we would like to build a solid business model that can stably increase profits even if the investments for further business growth are increased. Currently, our average contract period and gross profit margin is already in a high number. Therefore, in order to maximize LTV, we think that it is essential to maximize ARR.
In order to make this happen, we will actively engage in activities with expected high return on investment and aim to accumulate the ARR as much as possible. ARR can be broken into three factors: large N, small n, ARPU, which represents the number of contracted companies, average number of users per contracted company, and average revenue per user, respectively. The progress of three KPIs for HENNGE One is, as shown in the slide. Including our main service, HENNGE One, our group mainly operates a subscription model business. Barring any cancellations, the contracts secured this year will continue to generate sales and become the foundational sales from next year onwards. You can see HENNGE One's ARR is steadily and stably increasing year-over-year.
From FY 2021 to FY 2023, in order to create an accelerated upward trend in ARR growth, we strengthened the organization through acquiring new customers and continued to increase the value that we can provide to our customers. Furthermore, we firmly delivered the value to our customers by encouraging their understanding. Through these activities, we have increased the number of contracted companies and ARPU. By continuing this cycle, we would like to accelerate ARR growth over the medium term. Finally, I would like to give my impressions for this quarter. As can be seen from the growth in the number of contracted companies over the past few quarters, we are making steady progress in acquiring new customers, and we feel that the market is actually expanding.
As a result of the increase in personnel up until the previous fiscal year, sales members are now able to expand their activities to various regions. Marketing activities have also been energetic, which enables events and exhibits to be held once in a few days. Operating income is progressing at a fast pace, but we plan to continue to carry out activities for future growth. We expect that the operating income will be in line with the full-year forecast. HENNGE One has been enhancing its value by continuing to add powerful new features and services. We are also continuing to take on new initiatives, such as File DLP, which is currently under development, and sales of kickflow, which started in October 2023.
In order to maximize the total amount of technology that we deliver to our customers, we will continue not only to enhance HENNGE One's value but also adding new products, features, and services that are essential in the field of customer software as a service utilization. Additionally, through promoting the use of HENNGE One, we will strongly support customers' productivity improvement led by software as a service utilization. By proceeding these steps, we will achieve mid-term ARR growth in the mid-20% average growth rate. Our aim is to achieve and exceed JPY 10 billion for HENNGE One's ARR. We would like to establish a sustainable growth model by actively implementing the business cycle to increase the acknowledgment of our brand and increasing the number of potential customers.
At the same time, we will also keep strengthening our sales force and the relationships with resellers, developing and releasing new features, and creating additional values of HENNGE One. This concludes our explanation of the first quarter of fiscal year 2024. Thank you for taking your time to watch our video.