■Company Overview

1. Company history

Fuji Shoji ＜6257＞ was founded in 1958 for the purpose of manufacturing and leasing and selling Rock Paper Ball Game Machines*, and became a corporation in 1966 in line with business development. It entered the arrangement ball game machine market in 1973, and the big hits of the arrangement ball game machines “Alesin” and “Excite,” which were developed in 1992, became an opportunity to improve brand power. After that, in order to expand its business domain, it entered the pachinko game machine market in 1989 and the pachislot game machine market in 2003.

※ This game machine creates a winning role by putting a ball into the prize slot that looks like a mahjong tile, and medals are refunded according to points scored.

Shares were listed on the JASDAQ (later Tokyo Stock Exchange JASDAQ Standard) market in 2007, and a capital and business alliance agreement was concluded with Sun Electronics (6736), which had a conventional business relationship, in 2013. Components such as control boards are procured from Sun Electronics, and it is one of the company's main suppliers. Manufacture and sale of pachinko machines and pachislot machines began at JFJ Co., Ltd., a subsidiary established in 2005, and consolidated financial results began in the fiscal year ending 2019/3. Also, in 2019/8, Orange Co., Ltd. was established as a subsidiary that manufactures and sells pachinko machines and pachislot machines. Furthermore, due to the market restructuring of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (hereinafter referred to as the Tokyo Stock Exchange) in 2022/4, it has transitioned to the Tokyo Stock Exchange standard market.

2. Business characteristics

The company's characteristics include the fact that it invents a new game system and is the first in the industry to utilize it in the development of new models, and that it is actively working on the development of models using character copyrights such as anime. In 2002, as a new system at the time, the company first introduced production using a chance button on a pachinko game machine, which has now become common. Also, in the development of game machines using character copyrights, “CR Thunderbird 2,” which was released in 2003, and “CR Rampage Shogun,” which was released in 2004, were big hits.

Since 2000, it has acquired a certain amount of brand power with “horror” models. The “CR Ring,” which was introduced in 2007, was initially sold in the 0.015 million range due to uncertainty about whether it could attract customers due to “horror,” but it maintained high operation, such as a gradual increase in female fixed customer fans at pachinko parlors that were introduced, and evaluations increased. The successor model “CR Ring: 7 Days of the Curse,” which was released in 2011, left a long-term high operating record, and became a big hit model that sold a cumulative total of 0.07 million units in the series, and now multiple “horror” models have been serialized and sold constantly. As a recent trend of introducing new models on the hall side, there is a growing trend of preferentially introducing successors to series models that have been sold in order to suppress investment risks. Therefore, sales of the first model are unlikely to grow, but if the operating rate is high, stable sales can be expected after the successor model. Recently, if 0.01 million units or more are sold, it is said to be a hit model, and the “P to Aru Magical Forbidden Book List,” which was introduced in 2020, became a hit that surpassed the 0.02 million unit, and it has left a strong sales record even in the successor series.

Meanwhile, there were no hit models of the pachislot game machine since the “7 Days of the Curse of the Pachislot Ring” released in 2014 became a hit product selling 0.021 million units and “Pachislot Resin” sold in the 0.023 million unit, but the “SLOT and Aru Science Super Electromagnetic Gun” released in 2022 became a hit for the first time in a long time, and the company's first to go on sale in 2023 The smart pachislot “L Goblin Slayer” was also a hit that surpassed the 0.017 million mark, and it is regaining momentum again.

(Author: FISCO Visiting Analyst Joe Sato)