Message from the
President

I would like to thank you, our shareholders, for your exceptional support and patronage.

Our previous medium-term management plan, based on a policy of “Overcome crisis and regain earning power,” ended in the fiscal year ended March 2023. Over the past three years starting with the fiscal year ended March 2021, which was our first year in the red since we went public, we have embarked on various initiatives to revise our earnings structure.

The number of unprofitable stores has been reduced by approximately 17% since the end of March 2020, the former business unit system was overhauled to the functional division system, and we promoted various reforms not bound by conventional thinking, including personnel measures, inventory policies, and more. We are also moving away from the traditional selling method, which relies on discount sales, to an approach that strengthens regular price sales and ensures an appropriate gross margin while increasing confidence in prices.

We implemented OMO measures through the renewal of our own e-commerce site, “UNITED ARROWS ONLINE.” We are digitizing the customer service skills of our sales staff, such as with styling posts, social media operations, and chat-based customer service, which were interactions previously available only in physical stores, creating a foundation for providing value to customers across Japan that transcends the boundaries of the stores to which the staff members belong. In addition to the youth-oriented brand “CITEN,” we have embarked on new initiatives that will lead to future growth, such as developing apparel derivative brands for yoga, outdoors, and golf, as well as collaborative brands with influencers.
As a result of these initiatives, we were able to return to a level close to the pre-pandemic situation for the fiscal year ended March 2023, with sales of 130,135 million yen and an operating income of 6,362 million yen. We also plan to pay an annual dividend to shareholders of 47 yen per share, with a payout ratio of 30.8%.

In May 2023, we announced our long-term vision, which will conclude the fiscal year ending March 2036, as well as our medium-term management plan to kick off the first three years toward that vision, which will conclude the fiscal year ending March 2026.

The slogan of the long-term vision is “The beautiful company UNITED ARROWS. We will continue to pursue truth, goodness, and beauty in order to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society and become a high-value-added group that continues to be loved by customers.” When we accomplish this long-term vision, our company will become a highly sensitive and high-value-added lifestyle provider group, and we hope to be an indispensable part of living sensitively in Japan.

One value we should hold to achieve our long-term vision is breaking away from a sales expansion orientation based on the premise of mass production and mass consumption, and instead shift toward broadening our customer base and expanding the scope of the value we provide. We still have much unexplored territory and many customers we have yet to acquire if we are to provide the standard for lifestyle culture, which has been an aspiration since our founding. We aim to create the standard for lifestyle culture and achieve our long-term vision by expanding our fashion-focused business domain to include all lifestyles, and expanding our customer base through highly sensitive, high-value-added services.

The theme of the new medium-term management plan, which will serve as a start toward that goal, is “providing excitement - connecting with customers widely and deeply.” Centering on OMO, we will grow our existing businesses while deepening contact with existing customers, and through new initiatives we will expand our business areas beyond apparel, using these three years to lay the groundwork for providing value to more customers.

Because we are a corporate group that has focused on the fashion business, we face various difficulties in taking on challenges in new fields, and there may be cases that cause concern to our shareholders. Nevertheless, we believe that we can achieve this goal by maximizing our competitive advantages in terms of service, products, and places, and by continuing to work tirelessly and invest appropriately. We believe this will enhance our corporate value and ultimately lead to value for our shareholders.

We sincerely ask you, our shareholders, to continue to support the UNITED ARROWS Group.