The diversified marketplace and former aggregator operator Lifull has released its financial result for the first quarter of the Japanese financial year, ending in October 2024.
Highlights from the business include:
Minor revenue growth year-on-year was driven by Homes.co.jp’s increase in site traffic and inquiries, while the smaller segments—Overseas and Other—both saw reduced revenue compared to the same period last year.
Revenue growth rates for the HOME's segment have shown consistent improvement over the last five quarters, from a modest 0.5% YoY revenue growth in Q1 2024 to 7.7% this quarter.
Meanwhile, Lifull has released a separate statement surrounding revisions to its consolidated financial results forecast due to the transfer of its overseas subsidiary, namely the Overseas segment falling into the hands of a new management team led by FazWaz founder Mike Kenner this January.
Lifull reduced its holding in the Overseas segment to 55% (from 65%) but most importantly relinquished all its voting rights, handing over total decision-making control to Kenner and his team.
Lifull said, "The Overseas business has become a pure investment and excluded from consolidation. Moving forward, we will focus our management resources on expanding our domestic businesses in Japan."
Meanwhile, yesterday's filing states:
The Board of Directors has resolved... to revise the consolidated financial results forecast for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, as detailed below.
In this revision, we have excluded revenue and expenses originally included in the forecast for the Overseas segment from the second quarter for the rest of the year to reflect recent changes in our overseas subsidiaries. As we are still reviewing the effects of the accounting treatment for the loss of control of LIFULL CONNECT after deconsolidation as well as accounting treatment for the liquidation of Mitula Group, we have not yet included these factors into our revised forecast. We will continue to confirm the effects of these items with our auditing firm and will promptly revise our financial results forecast as soon as details have been confirmed.
The result of this consolidation is shown below, as published in yesterday's filing:
Finally, Lifull's revised full-year forecast for the 2025 financial year, taking into account the new-look Overseas segment, suggests full-year revenues will fall 19% to JPY 30.6 billion ($199.5 million)—circa $47.8 million less than previously forecasted.