We would like to start a meeting on KDDI financial results of the second quarter of fiscal year ending March 2023. I'm your emcee, Noguchi , from KDDI Public Relations Department. This meeting is held in person and also distributed on the internet. Regarding the materials, there are three items and business results, one news release uploaded on KDDI's website. Please make sure you have the materials. For those of you in the hall, please refer to the materials at hand. Allow me to introduce today's participants. Representative Director President Makoto Takahashi. Representative Director Executive Vice President Shinichi Muramoto. Director Senior Managing Executive Officer Kazuyuki Yoshimura. Executive Officer General Manager Corporate Management Division Kenji Aketa. General Manager Accounting Department Ezoe Shigeru. Five are participating. President Takahashi, the floor is yours.
Thank you for the introduction. I will explain the financial results for the second quarter of this fiscal year ending March 2023. Today, my presentation will cover three points. First on progressing towards a resilient telecommunications infrastructure. Second, consolidating financial results. Lastly, progress on midterm management strategy. I will be following this order. First, progressing towards a resilient telecommunications infrastructure. I would like to discuss our efforts that we are taking based on the lessons learned from the communication failure. These are the efforts we are undertaking to prevent a recurrence of a communication failure. On the left, shown is a structure that cuts across our organization with the operation, engineering, construction, customer services, PR, and sales departments collaborating with each other to promote the efforts.
On the right-hand side of the slide, in September, on top of the regular disaster response drill, we organized a company-wide training on telecommunication failure. This was an opportunity for us as a company supporting people's living infrastructure to verify in the event of a disaster what would happen and how we should behave. The Telecommunications Accident Verification Conference, hosted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, had discussions on improving when an accident occurs, how, under what structure information is handled in the PR, disseminated and reported, and setting of rules regarding these incidents, for the industry in general. Based on these discussions, we submitted a report on the measures for prevention from the six perspectives, as are described on the slide.
As to number four, improvement of PR content and methods, and number five, securing alternative means for emergency calls and others, there are ongoing discussions at the ministry's WG. To meet our customers' expectations, we are making an additional investment of JPY 50 billion in the medium term, mainly on the virtualization technology to improve the level of quality. As is described on the left-hand side of the slide, by front-loading our long-term investment ahead of schedule, we will achieve early migration to a virtualized infrastructure, strengthen congestion control, and automate operations. As is shown on the right, we will promote operational sophistication as well, including speeding up abnormality detection and restoration response. Next, I would like to explain the consolidated financial results. These are the highlights from the first half financial results.
Progress made in the consolidated operating income against the plan was 50.8%. Consolidated operating income in the first half declined due to the communication failure and high fuel costs. The NEXT Core business and financial business in the focus areas are performing very well with strong KPIs. Therefore, we will continue to aim for increasing our consolidated operating income and expanding the focus areas. Next, let me discuss the factors for change in the first half consolidated operating income. In the first half, our consolidated operating income fell due to a negative impact of JPY 14.8 billion of cost associated with the communication failure and fuel price hikes. If we exclude that impact, starting from the left-hand side of the chart, multi-brand communications ARPU revenue was down by JPY 53.9 billion.
Group MVNO revenue, roaming revenue declined by JPY 6.9 billion. Focus areas were up by JPY 10.6 billion . There were also cost savings related to closing 3G services. In total, a slight increase in income year-on-year. Next on multi-brand ARPU revenue. As shown on the left, despite increase in the number of IDs, because of the impact from the brand mix, multi-brand communication ARPU dropped by JPY 53.9 billion year-on-year, excluding the impact of a refund. On the right, multi-brand value added ARPU revenue increased by JPY 60.8 billion year-on-year due to growth in the electricity payment, content and product support services businesses. Next on multi-brand IDs. As of end of September, the number of IDs was 30.93 million, an increase year-on-year.
In July, because of the communication failure, new subscriptions or contracts sagged. August and onward, they are on a recovery trend, mainly with UQ mobile. Our efforts will continue to target meeting the initial goals set at the beginning of the fiscal year. Next, on progress on the mid-term management strategy. Next is on sustainability management. Our aim is to build a favorable cycle of our business, making a positive impact on society to have a new social value created as a result to be fed back into our future business strategy. To cite some of the representative components of our sustainability targets, the number of regional disparities solved was 2.75 million against a mid-term goal of 15 million.
In relation to human capital, to develop a DX personnel, DX training courses are now held in earnest for employees to participate. The cumulative number of IoT connections that are mainly growing in mobility has grown to 28 million. To strengthen our management foundation, starting from the left on the next phase, KDDI issued its first sustainability bond amounting to a total of JPY 100 billion. The fund raised from the bond will be spent primarily on 5G capital expenditure, which is going to be at the core of the Satellite Growth Strategy, and also on the promotion of carbon neutrality and others. As is in the middle of the slide, by investing in startups, we will support cutting-edge technology and advancing green innovation.
On the right, in light of rising global awareness on human rights, we revised a human rights policy to clearly demonstrate our concrete human rights initiatives.
The left shows lessons learned from the communication failure, which had impacts in various industries and living infrastructure, bringing shift in mindset in KDDI. The right shows the Satellite Growth Strategy. At its core, in addition to resilience of the communication networks, we aim at providing solutions to further improve society with in-depth analysis and deep investigation on scenes where customers use our services, even to the impact on their customers if our customers are corporations. We are working to build a resilient foundation to create new values towards strengthening the foundation of social infrastructure. From here, let me explain about the progress in focus areas. In DX, finance and energy, we have a full lineup of KDDI Digital Divergence Holdings, au Financial Holdings and au Energy Holdings for each, with each exercising synergy with communications, which is KDDI's strength. We intend to maximize corporate value.
Next, I'd like to share with you the progress of measures for growth. In the business services segment, NEXT Core drove the increase in the operating revenue. In the operating income, NEXT Core grew, driving an increase in the operating income. In particular, Corporate DX and Business DX contributed greatly. In Business DX, helping customers achieve DX, we laid the groundwork for industry-specific DX with development, product and BCP. The left shows KDDI Digital Divergence Group, which aims to expand development projects by connecting operating companies that have capabilities required for DX promotion, including cloud and agile development. The center shows that we're also working on enhancement of DX products through partnering, strengthening provision of added value, such as AI video data and utilization of au location information. The right shows how we are working to reinforce BCP response. In IoT, SORACOM SIM can be combined.
Going forward, we will further reinforce BCP response menu by having reserve lines as well. Next, let me introduce Business Co-Creation. KDDI Video Management Service is a platform where you can manage video data from surveillance cameras in multiple locations in an integrated manner on highly secure cloud. By combining it with AI video analysis, we will realize advanced operations. Hitachi Transport System introduced it after demonstration simulation expressing their support for the service, citing the following as important points, highly reliable security, BCP response with distributed data storage, and convenience, as one can see the data anywhere using a smartphone. We will enhance proposals for added values in an era where communications blend in. The next concerns finance. The left shows financial business, which had a significant increase in income influenced by temporary effect from an accounting change in housing loan fee in the first quarter.
The right shows major KPIs, namely transaction volume of settlement/loan and loan products balance, which have been expanding nicely. In particular, regarding card loan, its balance exceeded JPY 200 billion in September. Further, concerning synergy with KDDI, the left shows the Ponta members, the platform of more than 100 million. With this partnership, points can be used and saved. In addition, we are promoting cooperation with other financial services. The right shows high evaluation in various satisfaction surveys we received. We would like to continue to offer attractive financial services, mainly to au customers and Ponta members. In addition to making services more attractive, we also started working with au PAY merchants to expand the usage. The left shows au PAY growth, which can deliver coupons to au PAY members in a detailed manner.
We support merchant sales promotion activities responding to such voices as, "We want to acquire new customers," or, "We'd like to have customers on a rainy day as well." With these, we aim to further expand the au PAY and also grow profitable credit card business. In Digital Twin, we are working on creating a fantastic virtual world to expand the living zone and economic zone. The left shows our third Virtual Halloween festival in collaboration with government and startups. The center shows how precise simulation is made possible by collecting real-world data and reconstructing urban space in three dimensions. We aim to offer a data platform that can be utilized for various industries. The right shows how high-definition real-time XR, with which we offer a garment-fitting experience by virtual human.
In the apparel industry, we are aiming to realize a world where we achieve diversified purchase experience and sustainability in exciting shopping. Next, on regional co-creation. The left shows that we are promoting regional DX cooperation with Tsukuba City. In our work with drones, we verify logistics service in combination with automated delivery robots. Visualizing flight patterns of drones and creating a skyway will lead to the utilization of real metaverse. Moving to the right, at au Shops nationwide, we value connections to communities. Many customers have experienced a smartphone class and mobile phone reboots. Leveraging satellite telecommunications Starlink, there are more than 16,000 mountains and over 6,000 islands in Japan. We are also prone to natural disasters. In addition to its use in backhaul lines of au base stations, we agree to offer it to domestic operations and local governments.
We intend to erase digital divide and aim for a society where people feel safe and secure. We started airing a tie-up commercial with Suzume no Tojimari, a new work by director Makoto Shinkai. We're communicating our message, "Together with the community, explore the extraordinary," combining our brand and also this concept of community. Here is the summary of the first half business result. In the midterm management strategy, concerning Satellite Growth Strategy, steady progress was made in KPIs in focus areas DX and financial business. Regarding communications business in the center, centering on 5G, our continued aim is to realize the bottoming out of multi-brand communications ARPU in March 2023 period. Having learned lessons from the communication failure, we are promoting our efforts. In addition to building a resilient network foundation, we aim to create new value for the betterment of society.
We are promoting operations looking at the midterm. Thank you for your kind attention.