Overview of Japan Hume <5262> business.

5. Risk factors, challenges, and countermeasures.

The demand for concrete secondary products is affected by the impact of construction investment (civil engineering and construction work, public works), competition intensifies, raw material price volatility, and delays in construction progress due to lack of workers on site are also risk factors. On the demand side, while private construction work may be influenced by changes in the economy, it is expected that demand for public work will remain strong due to national resilience-related efforts such as disaster prevention and mitigation and aging infrastructure measures. In terms of competition, the company is promoting the development of new technologies and products and improving its technological and quality capabilities to further enhance its competitiveness. In terms of profitability, as the profit margin for private construction work is generally low in the entire construction-related industry, improving the profitability of basic infrastructure is a future challenge.

(Authored by FISCO guest analyst Masanobu Mizuta)