Let me introduce the speakers for today. The first half of the presentation will be given by Executive Vice President and Group CFO, Masashi Yasuda. The second half will be presented by Group Executive Officer and General Manager of the Finance Department, Noriko Inagaki. Today, we will provide an overview of the financial results, followed by a Q&A session. Presentation materials on the financial results are available on the company's website. After this event, a link to a questionnaire will appear on the screen. We would appreciate it if you could answer the questions. We kindly ask for your cooperation. Now, Mr. Yasuda, Executive Vice President, will give a presentation.
Hello, I am Yasuda, CFO of GMO Internet Group. Thank you very much for attending GMO Internet Group's financial results meeting. Our fiscal year ends in December, and I will explain about the results for the period from July to September.
This is the agenda for today. I will explain the conclusion and the summary, as well as the group's management strategy. Ms. Noriko Inagaki, Group Executive Officer and General Manager of the Finance Department, will cover the segment report. I will then explain about our transition to a holding company structure and shareholder returns. This is the conclusion and the summary of this presentation. I would like to talk about 3 points. Firstly, we will make efforts to enhance corporate value in the long term. In order to become a group that will continue for 100 years, grow sustainably, and achieve our management objectives included in our ultra-long-term plan called 55-Year Plan, we aim to manage our business from a long-term perspective. Our goal is to grow operating profit by 15% or more each fiscal year.
Based on the common value foundation of GMOism, our group companies will develop our own technology and generate solid recurring revenues to provide the number one services. Secondly, let me share our current status. The strength of our independent management is greatly manifested in our third quarter results. In the internet infrastructure, the payment business operated by GMO Payment Gateway continued to perform well, and the non-payment businesses also achieved an expansion in profit growth rate. As I said earlier, we aim for long-term sustainable growth. In Q4, we plan to invest in each segment for growth that will be realized starting from next year. As for the securities business in Thailand, we will consider options to minimize future risks, including withdrawal from the business. Finally, we will further strengthen group management.
We will accelerate our efforts to manage the company with a sense of speed with the transition to a holding company structure in January next year. Growth will come not only from existing businesses but also from group synergy maximization driven by AI, robotics, and security technologies to ensure sustainable growth in the future. These are the consolidated results for the third quarter. The numbers are as shown. Sales and profits increased due to the continued expansion of internet infrastructure and an effective improvement in the profitability of internet finance. Ordinary profit and below for this quarter were down year- over- year due to the impact of the USD/JPY exchange rate and the recognition of foreign exchange losses. These are the cumulative figures for January to September. The numbers are as shown. Despite the provision in the Thai securities business, we achieved an increase in both sales and profits.
Next is the summary of each segment. Qualitative evaluations by management are shown on the right for Q3 together with those for the previous quarter. Internet infrastructure is double circle. Sales reached a record high for the fourth consecutive quarter due to the accumulation of solid recurring revenues. Each business is performing well. Although the year-over-year hurdle was high due to a one-time positive factor in the previous year, we were still able to achieve a profit growth of over 27%. We really feel the strength of solid recurring revenues generated by our portfolio of overwhelmingly number one services. Online ad and media is circle. Sales decreased, but profits increased. Sales were negative due to weakness in the advertising agency business, which accounts for a large portion of sales. In this segment, we are making progress in developing and operating our own products and services and in generating recurring revenues.
Profits increased due to growth in high-margin in-house products and media. Internet finance is triangle. Sales increased, but profits decreased. Although the trading volume of FX, our main service, increased significantly, profits decreased due to the securities business in Thailand, which recognized reversal gains in the previous year but recorded a provision in this fiscal year. Without the provision in the Thai business, we would have recorded the highest profit. FX is double circle as sales expanded and cost efficiency improved. CFD is circle as trading volume and revenue remained strong. Recognizing a provision again for the Thai business is cross. As we have announced, our margin trading business in Thailand will be terminated by the end of this year. We will consider all options, including withdrawal from this business to limit the impact on our business performance to this fiscal year. Crypto assets is circle. Sales increased.
We also posted a profit for the fourth consecutive quarter. A positive performance was due to the active crypto asset market in the expansion of trading volume and revenues in the exchange business. We have established a system that allows us to make a profit as long as there is a certain level of trading volume. This shows year-over-year changes in sales and operating profit by segment. The left side shows net sales and the right side shows operating profit. As I mentioned before, the continued strong performance of internet infrastructure, sales expansion of internet finance and black ink of crypto assets absorbed the temporary cost of internet finance. On a consolidated basis, sales and operating profit grew by JPY 7.1 billion and JPY 2.3 billion, respectively, year-over-year. This diagram provides a map of the key components of our core internet infrastructure business.
Starting from the fundamental internet businesses of providing access domain and cloud hosting services, we have grown by incorporating high value-added services such as e-commerce platforms, security and payment processing offered by group companies. As the number one service provider in each field, our group companies have continued to offer indispensable value that will not disappear. We have achieved sustainable growth through synergies among our number one services. In the past several years, a structural change we have been observing is the expansion of our customer base to encompass larger customers. The center of our growth driver is shifting to the upper right area in this diagram. We will continue to maximize group synergies in areas such as AI and robotics, as well as cybersecurity, an area of growing need around the world. This is the quarterly profit trend of internet infrastructure broken down into payment and non-payment businesses.
Light blue is the payment business run by GMO Payment Gateway, which continues to grow. Since Q3 of last fiscal year, the profitability of non-payment businesses has been going up as well, as you can see on the graph, partially driven by big contracts obtained by Flatt Security Inc. Let me talk about the background of the growth of our group. In recent years, social trends, as you can see, have been changing at an accelerating pace, and new social issues have emerged as a result. We have achieved steady growth by offering number one services to help solve customers' challenges in dealing with such changes. The categories of products shown on the slide are just some examples of what is currently performing well. The source of our ability to create highly competitive products lies in the group's strength, which is based on sharing and implementing GMOism.
As we shift to a holding company structure in the near future, we will continue to accelerate our group management based on GMOism. From here, let me talk about the strengths of our company. Let me talk about the strengths of our company leading to sustainable growth. There are three strengths: independent management, operations and development of our own technology, solid recurring revenues. The first strength is independent management. The characteristics of our group management is decentralized management with a sense of speed. Under the principle of GMOism, each group company pursues their number one strategy to generate growth-driving products in their own field of expertise. Independent management allows us to diversify risks and create a strong management foundation. Earlier, I talked about the profit expansion of non-payment businesses in internet infrastructure. This graph provides concrete details.
As you can see on the left, in Q3 of 2023, seven companies reported an increase in year-to-date profit, and six companies reported a decrease in year-to-date profit for an overall increase of JPY 1.1 billion. On the right, in Q3 of 2024, 12 companies reported an increase in year-to-date profit, and only one company reported a decrease in year-to-date profit. The overall profit doubled year-over-year to JPY 2.2 billion. The company that reported a decrease in profit had a high hurdle due to a contribution from a major contract last fiscal year and not due to any deterioration in business momentum. This trend means that independent management is making steady progress in the entire group. We believe that this is truly a clear improvement in the overall strength of the group. The second strength is operation and development of our own technology.
In order to keep winning in the fast-changing internet industry, we consider commitment to offering number one services as an important area of focus. We believe that we need to create and operate our own products and services. We need to think and act like a Monozukuri company or like a maker. The key people involved in making products and services are engineers, creators, and directors. As of the end of September, the number of employees called partners stood at around 7,500, of which 50% are those involved in production, and the percentage has continued to increase. As for hiring in general, we have shifted our policy to hire people with AI expertise since the second quarter of last fiscal year. Of course, there is some natural attrition, but as you can see, the increase in headcount has been controlled as a result. The third strength is solid recurring revenues.
This is a term expressing our unique revenue model of the group. Since our founding, we have been focused on building a revenue base that is generated from enduring, indispensable, subscription-type products and services. As long as the internet industry continues as an indispensable social infrastructure, solid recurring revenues will continue to support our sustainable growth. This is the trend of consolidated revenues. As you can see, we have achieved sustainable growth since our foundation. This is the solid recurring revenues translated into unit price and the number of contracts. The left graphs show that unit price and the number of contracts grew by 1.7 x and 1.9 x, respectively, achieving growth in both areas. The unit price increase is driven by the expansion of our customer base and the growing number of larger customers, as I mentioned earlier.
Solid recurring revenues increased by 3.1 x between 2015 and 2023, which shows that we have steadily built a sustainable revenue base. This shows the number of contracts for internet infrastructure. It can be rephrased as the solid recurring base supporting solid recurring revenues. With the expansion of the number of domain customers, the number increased by 1.92 million year-over-year to 15,180,000. We believe that this growth trend is indicative of society's continued support of our services. Please stay tuned for updates. I'd like to hand over to Inagaki, Group Executive Officer and General Manager of the Finance Department.
My name is Inagaki, Group Executive Officer and General Manager of the Finance Department of GMO Internet Group. I'd like to give a presentation on the status by segment. First, let me give you an overview of the group. This is the lineup of the group's main products and services.
As Yasuda mentioned earlier, they're all developed and operated by our group. The combined customer base for these products and services of infrastructure, finance, and crypto assets exceeds 17,910,000. This is a list of 10 public companies of the group, their market capitalization, and our share of equity. The total market capitalization of the group is a little less than JPY 1 trillion, JPY 200 billion, and our share of equity is JPY 380 billion. This is the trend of quarterly sales by segment, which we touched on in the beginning. Dark blue at the bottom represents the sales of internet infrastructure, which have been steadily rising. Most of this is solid recurring revenues, which are sustainable and highly foreseeable. Light blue, which is internet finance, has grown too, driven by the significant growth in trading volumes supported by the tailwind from financial market conditions.
This is the trend of quarterly operating profit by segment. We will maintain sustainable growth driven primarily by internet infrastructure's solid recurring revenues and also by internet finance's high-margin in-house products and services. Although there is an increase in labor costs in infrastructure at this time of year due to the fiscal year-end, the profit trend remains strong. Excluding the impact of a JPY 2.2 billion provision for the securities business in Thailand in this quarter, profitability improved significantly in real terms.
Next, on to the internet infrastructure segment. Here are the quarterly revenue and the breakdown. The revenue was up 9.1% year-on-year, and this was the fourth consecutive quarter of record performance. In addition to the strong growth of the payment business, our sales are also steadily increasing thanks to the success of monthly/annual subscription-based business model that forms solid recurring revenues of infrastructure companies, including unlisted ones. Quarterly operating profit. Operating profit was up 27.2% year-on-year, and each company accumulated solid profits. The security business, which we will be strengthening in the infrastructure segment going forward.
In order to respond to the strong interest in security and the threats that are increasing worldwide, and to meet these needs, our group has adopted the slogan for our security business, "Safe and secure internet for everyone." The security business consists of these three areas: SSL and other encryption security using authentication technology developed by GlobalSign, cybersecurity by the world's most powerful group of white hat hackers developed by GMO Cybersecurity by Ierae, a group joined in 2022 and others, and brand security by domain and trademark professionals. Of these, you can see our achievement in the cybersecurity area. Our new vulnerability research and study team has been established to participate in national and international security contests. In recent years, we achieved a world number one position in the world's most prestigious security contest for two consecutive years.
We will continue to contribute to the realization of a safe and secure internet society in Japan and around the world. In addition, we'll soon launch GMO GPU Cloud, a cloud service for generative AI. To contribute to the development of Japan's AI industry, we will provide high-performance computing resources and develop an environment essential for AI development and machine learning. Please stay tuned. Next, we'll discuss the online advertisement and media segment. Revenue was down 6.2% year-on-year. Although in-house products developed by GMO Media and GMO TECH performed well, in advertisement agency business, a trend of shrinking advertising budget in some industry continued, resulted in weaker performance. Quarterly operating income. The profit was up 29% year-on-year due to the growth of high-margin in-house product and recurring revenue type products. Next, internet finance business. Quarterly results are as shown. Foreign effects market continued to increase in trading volume and sales.
Profit was down because of the provision of allowance for doubtful accounts, approximately JPY 2.2 billion in Thai securities. But internal measures in FX, which we've been working on for some time, have been effective, and the profit in real terms improved. We have already decided to terminate our securities business in Thailand by the end of the year, effectively withdrawing from this business, and are taking various measures to increase profits in next fiscal year and beyond. Here are the net sales by each product. Effects in dark blue posted record sales as the market remained brisk. Sales of CFD in light blue grew as global equity markets were buoyant. This graph shows the relationship between FX sales and trading volume. Until FY 2022, there was an inverse correlation with an increase in transaction volume, but a decrease in sales.
The reason for this deterioration for profit at that time was a large portion of transaction volume used to come from large customers. In order to improve this situation, since the fourth quarter of 2022, we initiated measures such as placing limits on a daily transaction volume of some of our large customers. In doing so, we have gradually succeeded in improving sales and profitability, and at this time, with a further tailwind from the market, we achieved a record high performance. Finally, this is a crypto asset business situation and quoted results are as shown. The crypto asset trading business developed by GMO Coin has seen the market return to recovery trend since the fourth quarter of last year, partially due to the news and trends related to crypto assets. The increase in transaction volume resulted in profit for our fourth consecutive quarters.
We will continue to operate in a nonchalant manner while expanding our customer base and to work on various measures. That is all from me. Next, Yasuda will be back again to talk about transition to a holding company structure. Thank you.
Hello again. This is Yasuda speaking. I would like to explain the transition to a holding company structure. First, let me explain the purpose of this transition to a holding company structure. In our ESG disclosure from last year, our groups set out a corporate group that continues for 100 years as key issues in terms of governance. In rapidly changing field of internet industry, we have been searching for optimum organization structure to continue to win and create value sustainably. This transition to a holding company structure is the first step toward building a solid management foundation to achieve this goal.
Now, let me explain what kind of changes we aim to bring about through the transition to a holding company structure. Our company will be positioned closer to a pure holding company, will specialize in group management functions. Specifically speaking, this role is responsible for optimizing the business portfolio and serving as a foundation for generating group synergies, and will further strengthen the independent management that I mentioned earlier as our first strength, that I mentioned before. By promoting delegation authority to group companies, we will achieve more agile decision-making and accelerate the speed of growth. Now I would like to explain the current group structure. Our company, GMO Internet Group, is a business holding company, meaning we are conducting our own businesses too, while we also have major group companies.
As you can see, each company is independently developing its own business in its area of expertise, and this reorganization will be implemented between GMO Internet Group and GMO AD Partners. Now, I would like to explain in details about this restructuring scheme with GMO AD Partners. First, the infrastructure and other business currently operated by our company will be transferred to GMO AD Partners. In exchange, our company will receive, subscribe to the new shares issued by GMO AD Partners. This reorganization is solely between us and the GMO AD Partners, and there are no changes in other listed or unlisted group entities. As a result, our company will change its position from a business holding company to a pure holding company. In doing so, we will achieve specialization in group management function that I mentioned earlier.
GMO AD Partners will change its trade name to GMO Internet, Inc. and list its shares on the Prime Market on January 1 next year. Following the overview of the business and main services of the new GMO Internet, Inc., formerly GMO AD Partners, the 28-year history of access, domain, and cloud hosting, which were the cornerstone of our group, our founding business will be taken over for further growth. We will aim for further growth in both internet infrastructure and media. The business scale of the new GMO Internet, Inc. is as shown. Although these are reference figures based on the results of the FY 2023, this integration results in a combined sales of over JPY 76 billion from both businesses, resulting in significant expansion of our business base.
In particular, the infrastructure business will become the biggest driving force behind the increase in profits in non-payment business that I explained earlier. I'd like to explain the synergies from the integration of the two businesses. The new GMO Internet, Inc.'s infrastructure business has a number one solid recurring revenues products, including access, domain, and cloud hosting, and it acquires customers mainly through the web. Through this integration, it will be possible to directly utilize GMO AD Partners' web marketing know-how and expertise to attract more customers for these products. We anticipate extremely strong synergies in attracting customers. Next, I'd like to talk about the future outlook. Our company will change from a business holding company to a pure holding company.
We'll play a role of optimizing business portfolio and creating synergies in order to achieve the sustainable growth, and as a result, to achieve our 55 Year Plan, our long-term plan. Meanwhile, the new GMO Internet, Inc. will launch a GMO GPU Cloud hosting as a new business, in addition to the synergy of existing infrastructure and advertising media businesses, and will accelerate the development of this as a new growth driver. In closing, I would like to talk about our shareholder returns. Our basic policy is to achieve a total shareholder returns ratio of 50%, the breakdown of 33% for dividend pay, and the remaining 17% for share buybacks and retirement of treasury stocks. These are the dividend per share trend.
Earning and dividend forecasts for the current fiscal year are not disclosed again, and this is due to the volatility of our internet financial business and the crypto asset business, which makes it difficult to forecast earnings. For this reason, we are disclosing our dividend quarterly, and the dividend for this quarter is JPY 7.7 per share. Finally, I would like to report on the progress of the share buyback program. In conjunction with the announcement of second quarter financial results, the company announced an expansion of its repurchasing quota. As you can see, the share acquisition for the total of JPY 5 billion is progressing smoothly. That concludes today's briefing. Thank you very much for watching. Internet for everyone.