Good afternoon. I am Tominaga, President and COO. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today despite your busy schedule. Today, in addition to our third quarter financial results, I would like to explain our new Mid-Term Plan 2029. In this presentation, we would like to share not only our recent business performance, but also how ASICS intends to build on its growth to date and pursue further growth going forward. For this reason, I will focus on the key highlights of our third quarter financial results.
For further details, please refer to the financial results materials that we just released today. Our third quarter results are progressing steadily in line with the earnings forecast that we revised upward in August. The initiatives that the entire ASICS Group have been working on together are steadily delivering results, and we are confident about our prospect for our future growth. Let me begin with a summary of our financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending December 2026.
We achieved record-high results for the cumulative third quarter period in all key indicators: net sales, gross profit margin, operating profit, operating profit margin, and quarterly net profit. At the same time, the cumulative net sales for the third quarter exceeded JPY 800 billion, reaching JPY 805.1 billion, which is an increase of 28.8% year-on-year. Operating profit increased 37.5% to JPY 175.5 billion, while the operating profit margin improved by 1.4 percentage points to 21.8%. We also achieved increases in both net sales and profit across all categories and all regions. By category, SportStyle recorded particularly strong growth of 70%.
Category profit margins also increased further compared with the same period last year. Onitsuka Tiger continued with its strong growth, with net sales increasing by approximately 35% while maintaining a high category profit margin. By region, ASICS Japan improved its gross profit margin supported by continued strong inbound demand, resulting in a further improvement in its operating profit margin. North America and Europe, where SportStyle has been growing strongly, we also recorded a significant sales growth accompanied by higher operating profit margins.
From September through October, one of Asia's largest international multi-sport events held once every four years took place in Nagoya. ASICS-supported athletes delivered outstanding performances, including parasports, winning a total of 86 medals. ASICS-supported athletes also won gold medals in events including the women's marathon and mixed double tennis. In terms of market share, ASICS achieved the top position in marathon, triathlon, and tennis singles event, demonstrating our strong presence across Asia. We also demonstrated our strong presence at major sports events around the world.
ASICS-supported athletes won the Gold Coast Marathon, which is the trail running international event, and also 2026 UTMB, as well as the World Triathlon Championships. In terms of the market share, ASICS maintained its leading position in Gold Coast, Sydney, and Kuala Lumpur, while increasing its share to over 30%, exceeding last year's levels. We also steadily increased our market share in Berlin and Chicago compared to last year. Our tennis presence is also growing steadily. Net sales increased significantly by more than 36% year-on-year, driving growth in the Core Performance Sports category.
In addition to tennis, emerging sports that are gaining popularity globally, such as padel and pickleball, are also continuing to contributing to sales growth. The expansion of our business portfolio is helping us to build a business structure that is less susceptible to trend in any particular category or region. We also established a strong presence at major sports events. In Japan, we are advancing initiatives to drive further growth, including entering into an advisory staff agreement with Kei Nishikori and opening a temporary pickleball court in Marunouchi, Tokyo.
ASICS will continue to achieve sustainable growth, and we will combine our efforts together and continue running until I look forward to your continuous support. On the following page, I will be talking, sharing the details of the financials also, so please refer to them later. That is all for the presentation of the financial results. Now we would like to move on to the presentation of the Mid-Term Plan 2029.
Good afternoon, everybody. I am Hirota . I am the Chairman and CEO. Today, I would like to talk about the overall direction of the group and our financial targets under our Mid-Term Plan 2029. There is something I have repeatedly communicated internally over the past year, that is ASICS has entered an entirely new stage. Compared with fiscal 2018 when I became President, our net sales this year were nearly triple, finally exceeding JPY 1 trillion. Our profitability has also improved to a level among the highest in the industry, and market cap has almost 10x . As the stage of a company change, we must also change the way we operate. The theme of our new Mid-Term Plan is Ahead of the Game.
This means taking the initiative ourselves and staying ahead in a way that is uniquely ASICS rather than simply comparing ourselves with other companies. ASICS will follow its own path. Although market environment is constantly changing, we aim to achieve strong growth under any circumstances by staying Ahead of the Game. I would like to talk about five key points in the Mid-Term Plan. The first is expanding business scale. In the previous Mid-Term Plans, we focused in on improving profitability, and therefore, we did not set net sales target. Today, ASICS has become a company capable of generating high profits.
Accordingly, we have added net sales as a KPI and is targeting JPY 1.5 trillion in 2029. Over the next three years, we will enter a new phase while we fully pursue business scale expansion while maintaining further improving our high levels of profitability. Second is group management. With the separation of the Onitsuka Tiger business, the ASICS Group will transition into a new group management structure. ASICS and Onitsuka Tiger will each pursue stronger brand value and business scale expansion while further enhancing the corporate value of the group as a whole.
The third is value creation capabilities. We will connect our globally distributed R&D production and supply chain operations through data and AI, further strengthening our group-wide value creation capabilities with our manufacturing capabilities at the core. The fourth is growth investment. In addition to investing in our people, we will actively invest in six priority areas, including AI, digital innovation, supply chains, and brand experiences in our stores to achieve a sustainable business scale expansion. The fifth is a gear shift in capital policy. Under ASICS Active Capital Management, we will significantly improve capital efficiency and expect to achieve an ROE of 50% in 2029. Now I would like to hand over to our President, Tominaga, to explain about the overall direction and details of the Mid-Term Plan 2029.
Thank you very much. I would like to explain the ASICS Group's new Mid-Term Plan 2029. Today, I will cover a review of the Mid-Term Plan 2026, the overall direction of the ASICS Group, and also a growth investment and capital policy. These are the three points I will be covering. Let me begin with a review of the Mid-Term Plan 2026. As you see here, we are on track to significantly exceed our original targets across all financial indicators, including net sales, operating profit, operating profit margin, and ROA. Net sales are expected to exceed the JPY 1 trillion milestone with a compound annual growth rate of more than 22%.
Operating profit is expected to reach JPY 195 billion, with an operating profit margin of 18.6%, representing a high level of profitability among the best in the industry. ROA has also improved to 17.9%, demonstrating a substantial improvement in asset efficiency alongside our higher profitability. These achievements have been recognized by the capital market. Our market cap increased from JPY 810 billion at the end of 2023 to approximately JPY 3.9 trillion on August 14 this year, reaching an all-time high since our listing. Our PBR also increased from 3.9x to approximately 10x .
We believe that these three years has been a period in which we delivered a tangible result in response to the expectation of our shareholders and investors. We have also achieved a high recognition in various areas, including the IR Excellent Company Grand Prize and our Corporate Governance of the Year. We view these awards not only as recognition of our achievement to date, but also as a reflection of expectations for our future. Over these three years, we have achieved more than just a business scale growth.
We have also transformed the way we manage our assets and capital. We thoroughly rationalized our assets and improved efficiency, while also enhancing cash efficiency, including a reduction in DIO. In terms of shareholder returns, we implemented progressive dividends. Over the three-year period, we plan to distribute a total of JPY 65.1 billion in dividends and conduct a share buyback totaling JPY 146.3 billion. Furthermore, through a share offering of approximately JPY 200 billion, we transformed our shareholder structure to one in which the capital market discipline plays a greater role. We strongly implemented these initiatives in line with our plan and achieved tangible results.
We believe this represents one of the major achievements of the past three years. The strategy set out in our previous Mid-Term Plan, namely transforming ASICS into a global integrated enterprise, has steadily progressed. Through this transformation of GIE, our headquarters and regional operating companies worked as one, focusing on high value-added products, reforming our supply chain, and maintaining disciplined control over our SG&A expenses. As a result, we achieved both global growth and profitability at a level amongst the highest in the industry. We are pleased to have achieved a strong growth across all categories and regions.
We also made progress in establishing a global managing structure, globally standardized systems, and the infrastructure needed to leverage AI. These three developments will serve as the management foundations supporting our further business scale expansion over the next three years. I will now share the overall policies of the ASICS Group. The theme of our new Mid-Term Plan is "Ahead of the Game." As Hirota mentioned at the beginning, the ASICS Group has entered an entirely new stage. Rather than following our competitors, we will take the lead in the market by leveraging our high profitability, brand strength, and execution capabilities.
We will further refine our unique strengths and take the initiative instead of waiting for change. This is the thinking behind our theme. For example, we will bring innovative products to market ahead of others. We will leverage technology while placing even greater emphasis on Japanese craftsmanship to raise our manufacturing standards. ASICS and Onitsuka Tiger will each deliver distinctive brand experiences. We will also strengthen partnerships with factories, suppliers, wholesalers, and athletes, and other partners while pursuing proactive and distinctive initiatives in capital policy.
Through these efforts, we will achieve sustainable growth by consistently staying one step ahead, even in a rapidly changing business environment. Let me turn to our consolidated financial targets. For the ASICS Group as a whole, we aim to expand our business scale and achieve net sales of JPY 1.5 trillion by 2029 while maintaining and further enhancing the industry-leading profitability we have already achieved. In 2026, the final year of the Mid-Term Plan 2026, net sales are expected to increase approximately 1.8x and operating profit approximately 3.6x compared with 2023.
We have largely completed the restructuring of underperforming businesses. Going forward, we will therefore place greater emphasis on global business expansion while actively investing in business growth. The net sales target of JPY 1.5 trillion was developed through extensive discussions between each ASICS category, Onitsuka Tiger, and our regional operating companies. We will achieve this sustainable business expansion through the growth of both ASICS and Onitsuka Tiger. As planned, we will spin off the Onitsuka Tiger business in January 2027.
Within the ASICS Group, the ASICS and Onitsuka Tiger businesses will each rapidly execute strategies optimized for their respective brands, enhancing brand value and driving business expansion. For the ASICS business, we have established ASICS VISION 2035, setting out our aspirations for the next 10 years, the essential partner to move body and mind. With performance and premium as our core pillars, we will strengthen not only our products, but also experiences and our ecosystem, targeting a net sales CAGR of 13% or more during the Mid-Term Plan period. Onitsuka Tiger will aim to become a global luxury lifestyle company from Japan, targeting annual growth of approximately 10% while placing the highest priority on continuously enhancing brand equity.
The foundation of both brands' strength and a key driver of their growth is our group-wide value creation capabilities. Under the continued evolution of GIE, our businesses, centered on ASICS and Onitsuka Tiger, will execute their strategies by fully leveraging these group-wide capabilities. Over the next three years, we will strengthen our shared group assets through the combination of global integration and digital technologies, further enhancing value creation capabilities across the group.
We have identified three shared assets. The first is innovation. This includes human-centric science, which scientifically studies human movement, as well as our extensive product archives and expertise accumulated over many years. The second is manufacturing. This includes Japanese craftsmanship with meticulous attention to detail and our production network capable of consistently mass-producing high-value-added products. These first two assets have been built since our founding and cannot be replicated overnight.
The third is our supply chain, which has evolved significantly over the past three years. By establishing globally integrated systems and frameworks for inventory management and supply-demand operations, we have built a foundation that enables us to visualize production, supply, and sales locations, as well as supply-demand and inventory data across the world, and drive efficient improvements. Over the next three years, we will significantly strengthen these assets and capabilities by combining global integration and digital technologies.
The key will be the expertise accumulated through years of research, manufacturing, know-how, refined on the production floor, and the global system infrastructure and clean data established over the past three years. These assets and our data infrastructure will enable us to translate AI into tangible value creation. Over the next three years, we will further strengthen these three assets. Next, I will explain the ASICS Group's growth investments and capital policy.
Over the next three years, we will significantly shift gears in our capital policy and substantially improve capital efficiency. Specifically, based on our current Mid-Term Plan, we expect ROE to reach 50% in 2029. Building on the high profitability we have already achieved, we will execute growth investments of approximately JPY 200 billion to drive further growth. After building high-quality assets, we will return approximately JPY 400 billion to shareholders to achieve an optimal equity level. Regarding dividends, we will move beyond progressive dividends, which may suggest gradual increases, and introduce build-up dividend, under which we will continue to increase dividends more aggressively.
This approach to lean balance sheet management without holding excessive equity is the foundation of ASICS Active Capital Management. Let me elaborate on the concept of ASICS Active Capital Management using an illustration of our balance sheet. As a result of our strong performance to date, the ASICS Group currently has a balance sheet with a high level of equity relative to non-current assets. Over the next three years, we will first steadily accumulate growth investments and expand our non-current assets or growth investment assets.
We currently expect growth investments of approximately JPY 200 billion. Meanwhile, continued profit accumulation means that equity is expected to remain at a high level even after these investments. Based on our principle of not holding excessive equity, we will establish an optimal equity level by adding a risk buffer for the business to the value of non-current assets after growth investments. We will then proactively return capital exceeding this level to shareholders.
Through these initiatives, we aim to achieve our optimal equity level by the end of 2029, while simultaneously realizing sustainable business expansion, a sound financial foundation, and high capital efficiency. Let me share our key growth investment areas. We have identified priority areas to support sustainable growth in the future. First, we will invest firmly in human capital as a shared foundation underpinning growth across all areas.
We will also continue investing in AI and digital technologies, where we have already established a solid foundation through both operating expenses and capital expenditures. Next, to enhance our value creation capabilities, we will invest in global R&D bases, collaboration with partners, and the enhancement of research facilities and equipment under innovation. Under manufacturing and supply chain, we will invest in digital technologies, in-house factories, warehouses, and production automation equipment.
To expand our brand value and customer base, we will invest in partnerships with major sporting events and athletes, and demand creation in key markets and categories. We will also invest in customer experience and loyalty programs, flagship stores, and experience-focused stores. All these investments are essential to driving growth across our business areas. As mentioned earlier, we plan growth investments of approximately JPY 200 billion over the next three years. Our main investment areas will be stores, digital technologies, and value chain enhancement, including R&D, production, and supply chain.
We are also considering strategic equity investments and M&A. Where attractive opportunities arise, we will consider investments to accelerate organic growth in our existing businesses, as well as acquisitions of new brands. To strengthen our competitive advantages, we may also establish deeper collaboration with strategic partners in digital technologies and intellectual property and production. Finally, to further expand and enhance consumer touchpoints, we will consider investments and M&A that enrich and extend our ecosystem, such as the acquisition of race registration companies. We will fund these investments through operating cash flow.
We will also further advance the GIE transformation of our corporate finance function, aiming to strengthen cash generation capabilities across the integrated ASICS Group. We will translate the results of these initiatives into values for our shareholders. Under this new Mid-Term Plan, we have added EPS and ROE as key management indicators. Under our capital policy, ASICS Active Capital Management, we aim to build high-quality assets through disciplined growth investments, improve the visibility of after-tax profit, and enhance EPS through continued more aggressive dividend increases and flexible and dynamic repurchases of treasury shares.
We aim to achieve ROE of 50% in 2029 and EPS growth that outpaces net sales growth. Finally, let me explain our key performance indicators. This slide summarizes our key performance indicators toward 2029. Under the theme of "Ahead of the Game," our management team and all group employees will work together to achieve these targets. This concludes today's presentation of Mid-Term Plan 2029.
As previously announced, we will hold our investment day next week on the 17th, where we will present the respective Mid-Term Plans for the ASICS and Onitsuka Tiger businesses. We hope you will join us. Going forward, we will continue running alongside our shareholders, local communities, and partners who support the ASICS Group. We sincerely appreciate your continued support. Thank you very much for your kind attention.