Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon, or good evening in this case. Welcome to the 81st Emerging Growth Conference and day two of our two-day virtual investor conference. I'm Anna Berry. Just a few notes. Today we're running until 4:00 P.M. Eastern. When we switch to the next company, you might see a black screen for a moment. Don't go anywhere. That's just us moving over to the next company. If you experience downtime, refresh your browser. Everything works properly if you have to do that. Our platform does work best on Google Chrome. If you're watching from an Apple device, you have to hit the play button to start the session. Now, during each company's presentation, you can submit questions through the webcast module. We will attempt to address as many of these at the end of the presentation.
Now, all of our conferences, they're uploaded to our Emerging Growth Conference YouTube channel. Please subscribe, youtube.com/emerginggrowthconference. One last note, after today's event, you'll be redirected to the registration page for the next conference. Stay on or come back to reserve your spot early. Today, I'm pleased to introduce to you for the first time, SBC Medical Group Holdings, listed last September under SBC. This ambitious team franchises the largest network of aesthetic medical clinics in Japan. Though they started in Japan, they have expanded to Singapore, Vietnam, and the U.S.. Today, we have SBC's CFO, Yuya Yoshida, with us. He has previously worked as global head and director of corporate development at Rakuten, has a law degree from Keio University, and an MBA from UCLA. We also have Hikaru Fukui, Head of Investor Relations. Mr. Yoshida, Mr. Fukui, pleased to have you both with us today.
Welcome to the Emerging Growth Conference.
Thank you for your kind introduction, Anna. Yeah, good morning, everyone. I'm Yuya Yoshida, Executive Vice President and CFO of SBC Medical Group Holdings. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us today. In this briefing, I will provide an overview of our company, a summary of our financial results, the current market environment, and our future direction. Okay, now let me start with our company overview and business model. SBC was listed on the NASDAQ Global Market in last September. Our core business model involves providing comprehensive management support services to franchisee clinics, mainly specializing in aesthetic medical services in exchange for franchise fees. These clinics offer a wide range of medical services, including aesthetic medicine, orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, health treatment, fertility treatment, and so on.
Regarding our franchise clinics, although the competitive environment became increasingly challenging due to new market entrants, our group continues to grow steadily in terms of clinic numbers and strategic pricing, resulting in increased customer volumes. In fiscal year 2024, more than 6 million customers visited our clinics. We place strong emphasis on ensuring that our customers feel they receive value that exceeds what they paid for, which contributes to our high repeat rate. Next, our business segment. Our three core businesses are aesthetic medicine, medical care, and overseas businesses, as shown in the slide. We also place importance on strengthening our platform business, which supports the entire organization. In the aesthetic medical field, we implement a multi-brand strategy, including the well-known Shonan Beauty Clinic, so-called SBC, to precisely address the increasingly diverse needs of our customers. Next, our highlight of financial performance. Now, I will highlight and explain financial results.
Revenue reached $250 million, an increase of 6% year-over-year basis, partly dampened by foreign currency translation. Our ROE declined compared to the previous year, mainly due to temporary expenses related to stock-based compensation following our public listing, impairment of certain patents, and increase in capital reserves. Next, our robust balance sheet. Our financial foundation remains strong. We maintain ample cash on hand with limited borrowings, maintaining a sound financial position. Our cash reserves will support future growth investment with flexibility depending on market conditions and business opportunities. We are also exploring effective utilization of surplus assets, taking into account currency risk. Next, our market environment and pricing strategy. On the left-hand side, it shows Japan's aesthetic medical market continues to expand. However, increased new entrants, as we discussed, have intensified competition. Industry-specific issues such as physician shortages in Japan and increasing regulatory scrutiny have made this a challenging year.
Despite this, we have successfully expanded our customer base and adapted to flexibility to the evolving competitive landscape. Next, regarding our strategic action for 2025, here's an example of our agility in this evolving market. In the dermatology segment, we revised our pricing strategy significantly in March 2025. Previously, due to frequent campaigns and discount coupons, the listed prices of SBC were unclear to our customers, giving the impression of being more expensive than competitors. The new pricing model is more transparent and customer-friendly, ultimately improving accessibility. Although it may appear as a price reduction when considering marketing and promotional costs, it represents a well-balanced strategy. In contrast, for high-demand health services, which have exhibited booking constraints, we raised the prices to reflect premium value. Okay, next, revision of franchise fees. We have also revised our franchise fee structures.
This revision is intended to support the long-term growth of our franchisee clinics. Under the previous model, franchise fees posed a financial burden during the early stages of new clinics openings, negatively impacting profitability. The new fee structure is designed to foster sustainable growth for our franchisees, ultimately contributing to the development of the entire SBC group, we believe. Next, our midterm business strategy through 2027. Our goal is to become a global medical service provider specializing in aesthetic medicine, addressing diverse customer needs. We also aim to establish a solid foundation for overseas operations, which will be key to accelerating our future growth. I will now outline our strategy in three key areas: aesthetic medicine, medical care, and the overseas business. First, aesthetic medical business in Japan.
Domestically, our aesthetic medical business continues to grow in terms of both clinic numbers and the customer base, securing a strong position, our number position in the Japanese market. Next, strong growth potential and our upside room for expansion. Despite our progress, market penetration rates in Japan remain approximately 10%, indicating significant room for growth, especially when compared with the Korean market side, which has a penetration rate of approximately 30%. In addition to our main demographic, I mean, women in their late teens to 30s, we are seeing increasing demand for middle-aged women interested in anti-aging treatment, as well as potential growth in the male customer segment. To address these diverse needs, we will continue to enhance our multi-brand strategy and respond flexibly to market trends.
Our opening strategy, left-hand side, shows in major metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, we are promoting multi-brand development to meet a wide range of customer needs. For instance, our newly launched Neo Skin Clinic, which opened recently on April 2, targets high-end users with advanced knowledge and expectations of aesthetic medicine, who used to visit Korea for the high standard of medical treatment. We are also developing brand and business formats tailored to specific customer segments. On the other hand, in regional cities, we are leveraging the strong brand recognition and accessibility of Shonan Beauty Clinic, which provides a comprehensive service across surgical and dermatological treatment. By establishing general clinics in key regional cities, we aim to attract and serve local customers with convenience and trust. Next, inbound strategy. Inbound kind of medical tourism business is another promising growth area for us.
We are enhancing our presence on Chinese social media platforms like RED and have seen a steady increase in terms of numbers of foreign visitors and associated revenue, which is exceeding a pre-COVID level now. We are also reinforcing multilingual support, including increasing the interpreter staff to further boost our ability to attract international clients. Next, development of the medical care business. In the medical care sector, which is our second pillar of our business segment, we are focusing on services closely related to aesthetic medicine, such as orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, fertility treatment, and hair loss treatment. By leveraging the marketing and management expertise gained through our 25-year private practice model, we aim to differentiate ourselves and establish a competitive business model in this area too. Next, future strategy in the medical business.
In addition to expanding our aesthetic clinic franchise network, we also plan to develop a B2B business platform by providing consulting services and proprietary systems to insurance-based clinics, which are facing challenges from the declining reimbursement rate from the government. Next, as for the overseas business expansion, we are prioritizing the U.S. and Southeast Asia market for our global expansion. In the U.S., the med spa industry is gaining traction, as you know, attracting large capital investment from the private equity firms and other funds. We intend to establish a successful business model in this space and increase our presence. In addition to our own med spa operations, we also plan to offer management and marketing support to U.S. clinics by leveraging our expertise in Japan. In Asia, Southeast Asia, last November, we acquired the company called AHH, a Singapore-based company operating approximately 20 aesthetic clinic locations and four brands.
This acquisition provided us with a strategic central hub for our Asian expansion. In the future, we aim to expand our overseas operations through a dual approach: direct clinic ownership and in combination with the provision of platform-based services in both U.S. and Southeast Asia market. The last part, yeah, we touched upon our capital policy and stock liquidity improvement. We recognize and we have to admit that our current share price does not fully reflect our financial fundamentals. One issue is, as you probably understand, extremely low stock liquidity due to low float. We have received similar feedback from many institutional investors and are considering various measures to improve supply and demand. Here, we explained multiple measures which we are considering. Specifically, we are focusing on two areas. The first one is improving supply and demand dynamics.
We are exploring options such as discovering new investors to mitigate our selling pressures and share buybacks and dividend payouts to enhance our attractiveness to investors. The second one is additional liquidity provision through new share issuance or partial sale of founder held shares. We are also considering a warrant exchange using stock-based consideration to increase the number of floating shares. Through these initiatives, we aim to generate a positive cycle of appropriate liquidity and improved share prices. Okay, that concludes our overview of SBC Medical Group Holdings' current situation and future direction. Thank you very much for your attention.
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Very interesting. Talk a little bit more about the current business environment in Japan's aesthetic medical market and what is SBC's strategy for that.
Thank you, Anna.
Yeah, as I partially explained in the presentation, we have to admit our Japanese aesthetic medical market became increasingly competitive, especially in the last year. At the same time, we believe the industry is undergoing a kind of a process of normalization. Specifically, we believe that market consolidation is underway where structural changes are already visible on the supply side. For example, we recently witnessed the bankruptcy of one of the major hair removal salons. We are also seeing a surge in M&A increase from other clinics, which are asking us to acquire or buy the clinics that were about to bankrupt, which suggests that the future competitive landscape will no longer be defined by increase in terms of market entrants. In this context, I believe, strongly believe, SBC is in a very good position and advancing the strategy centered around price normalization and maximizing customer value.
Yeah, on top of that, for example, in our hair removal segment, where demand is also high, that is a vision hard to come by, as I explained. We are working to improve customer satisfaction. We are also focused on encouraging those who have never tried aesthetic treatment before. To this end, we enhance price transparency and clinic accessibility. Yeah, again, we believe, although we have to admit the Japanese market is very facing the intense competition, we see very positive signs of our improvement of our market competition, yeah, landscape.
Wonderful. Is there potential for a rebound in the average customer spend at your medical corporations?
Yeah. Actually, many investors were asking at that point because it's true that average customer spending declined in certain areas last year, especially in the hair removal segment due to induced wide price competition.
However, we believe that we are entering a phase where we can gradually increase unit price again as the market normalizes, as I explained now. Our policy is not to raise prices arbitrarily, but to ensure customers feel they receive more value than paid. Now initiatives such as extended hours, improved treatment offers, and enhanced quality of service will help us to boost our perceived value. Therefore, we believe that this focus on value creation will naturally lead to higher customer spending over time.
Is the decline in the Q4 performance a temporary issue? Can we expect recovery? What happened?
Yeah, good question. We recognize that basically the current decline in our financial performance is largely temporary. The main focus is including the impact of rapid JPY depreciation last year, as well as a decrease in franchise fees due to scaled-up marketing investment.
We also saw a decline from the discontinuation of our staffing business following our portfolio review. I'm convinced that, yeah, these are largely one-off events and not expected to persist beyond this fiscal year.
With that, talk about some of the key growth drivers going forward.
I believe, yeah, our key growth drivers are trifold. First one, dermatology and the SBC brand in Japan, which is our core multi-brand strategy because we see the global trend for the non-invasive dermatology treatment compared with surgical treatment. These areas, we offer the high visit, sorry, yeah, in this area, I believe customers visit our clinics more frequently, which contributes to, in terms of numbers, I mean, in terms of number of customer touchpoints from our point of view. That contributes to our long-term growth.
Yeah, second growth drivers will be B2B services, which I explained, such as business support and systems for other clinics. By leveraging our long-term operational expertise, we aim to extend our know-how to clinics outside the SBC brand. The last and third one, and that's overseas expansion, particularly in the U.S. and Asia. We view these regions as significant growth opportunities, and we are actively considering multiple M&A opportunities. Actually, we got a lot of increasing, sorry, inquiries from our potential partners in the U.S. and Asia too. We are excited to provide new IR news regarding our M&A, yeah, globally.
Wonderful. We'll talk a little bit about tariffs. You believe the impact of tariffs is minimal. Why?
You mean the tariffs by the U.S. government and the U.S. President Trump, right?
Yes.
Yeah, from our point of view, I believe the tariff impact is very limited for us. Actually, a stronger yen could even benefit us because our operations are largely domestic currently. We are relatively kind of isolated from the foreign exchange fluctuations, especially in the timing of the strong yen. Moreover, because we import many medical devices, equipment, and supplies, with that, a stronger yen would reduce our procurement cost, I mean, our costs, and it positively affects our earnings.
Okay, good to hear that. Last question for you. Talk a little bit about the current stock price. How do you feel about it?
Very good question. Yeah, to be very frank, we are disappointed with the declining trade in our share price since our IPO in last September. We do not believe that our current price reflects our fundamentals or business performance.
At the same time, I have to admit one of the core issues is structural illiquidity with a very limited free float, as I explained in the presentation, and some selling pressure in the market because we went public via the process of de-SPAC. To address this, we intend to improve liquidity through capital purchase that I explained a bit, which we believe will help correct our valuation soon.
Perfect. I would love to give you both a chance to say a few closing remarks if you would like to have a few last thoughts for our viewers.
Thanks so much. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Anna. Yeah, thanks for attending and, yeah, giving all of your questions. Again, that concludes our presentation. We will continue to prioritize transparent and direct communication with our investors and the prospective investors and proactively share updates going forward.
We sincerely appreciate your ongoing support. If you'd like to get in touch with our team directly, please feel free to reach out to the contact listed in the banner below. Thank you so much.
Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Have a wonderful day.
Okay, good. We will send the rest of these questions to you so you can answer, but we appreciate you joining us on the conference today. All right, everyone. We'll be back shortly.