Asmark Co., Ltd. (4197) is engaged in marketing research (MR) business (about 96% of the cumulative revenue for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending November 2024) and HR tech business (approximately 4% for the same period).

The company name Asmark is a coined term that combines tomorrow and future (AS) with marketing (Marketing), high quality (Quality), and exploration (Quest). In September 2020, it released the "i-PORT voice," the first online interview tool for a research company. Clients using the company's research include major research firms, advertising agencies, consumer goods manufacturers, and media-related companies; for the cumulative revenue composition by client for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending November 2024, research companies accounted for 33.8%, agencies and consultants for 13.9%, operating companies for 41%, and others for 11.3%. In the previous term, the number of client companies for the fiscal year ending November 2023 was 1,101, with the number of client interfaces (trade accounts) at 2,413, and there were 175 major clients with annual revenues over 5 million yen, with major clients accounting for 74% of total revenue. Moreover, the repeat rate is 94.2%, indicating that many clients tend to be repeat customers. Currently, the effective panel size exceeds 1 million, establishing a large in-house panel base in Japan.

For the cumulative revenue for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending November 2024, the revenue was 3,352 million yen, an increase of 4.3% compared to the previous term, and the operating profit was 336 million yen, an increase of 18.3% with record high results for the cumulative period of the third quarter. The demand for MR centered around business companies that can receive direct projects continues to rise, particularly for offline research such as face-to-face group interviews and depth interviews, which have grown significantly, while online research and online interview research orders have also continued to perform well. Additionally, global research revenue grew substantially by 27.2%. The full-year revenue is projected to be 4,720 million yen, an increase of 10.2% compared to the previous term, and the operating profit is expected to increase by 13.6% to 360 million yen.

While the domestic MR market has continued to grow at a CAGR of 3.8% over the past five years, the company has maintained performance exceeding the market growth rate with a CAGR of 10% over the past five years. Traditionally, the company only contracted research practices from large research firms, but recently it has developed the capability to conduct research planning and design in-house, leading to an increase in direct orders from research clients (customers) due to the construction of industry-leading research quality, proposals, and analytical power. Furthermore, since there are no alternative contracting companies, orders from major research firms have not declined, maintaining and expanding steadily. The existence of over 1,000 trading companies annually and a repeat rate exceeding 94% with clients in other industries is a significant strength. Moreover, the company's overseas research revenue has performed admirably with a CAGR of 34% over the past five years. Research linked to its own panel of foreign residents in Japan is expected to continue growing, with plans to increase its share of revenue to 10%. Additionally, in the HR tech business, efforts are being focused on services such as in-house management tool "Sekinavi," ES research, and harassment prevention "CHeck," accumulating achievements. Shareholder returns are assumed to be stable dividends with a total return ratio of 30%, and the dividend yield is 2.77%. In the future, with abundant cash available for investments and M&A is also on the horizon, attention should be paid to the company's movements as robust growth in performance continues, all while maintaining a dividend yield of over 2%.