On November 9, 2018, Japan’s largest language service provider, Honyaku Center, released their quarterly earnings results for the second quarter of their 2019 financial year, which began April 1, 2018. Compared to the same period last year, six-months revenues are up 16.6% to JPY 5.718bn (USD 50.09m) and operating income increased slightly more at 16.8% to JPY 329m (USD 2.88m).
Honyaku reported that steady sales from its core Translation Business, the consolidation of Media Research Inc., (acquired in October 2017), and a surge in sales from their Convention Business helped bolster the results.
The company previously divided activities into six business units, but since their first quarterly earnings report in August 2018, the Language Education Business unit has been folded into the umbrella category “Others.” Honyaku’s five business units are now Translation, Temporary Staffing, Interpretation, Convention, and Others.
The company’s Translation Business unit—further subdivided into fields—saw 13.6% year-on-year growth with sales of JPY 4.069bn. By vertical, “Industrial and Localization” sales went up by 38.4% to JPY 1.271bn, continuing to reap the benefits of the Media Research Inc. acquisition as well as more order volume from infocomm companies. Meanwhile, Patents reported a 6.6% uptick in sales to JPY 1.033bn, and Finance and Legal reported a steady 5.2% increase to JPY 388m. Medical registered 3.8% growth to JPY 1.375bn.
The Temporary Staffing Business unit grew 9.3% to JPY 606m. The Interpretation Business saw an uptick of 4.3% to JPY 478m thanks to business from pharmaceutical and financial clients as well as foreign-owned IT companies. The Convention Business experienced a substantial 92.9% YoY growth with a few key conferences like the 8th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting contributing significantly to net sales of JPY 229m. The company’s Other segments reported a 75.5% increase to JPY 334m.
According to Honyaku’s Medium-Term Management Plan for the next three years, starting from the fiscal year ending March 2019, the company aims for sustainable growth for the core Translation Business while also utilizing language technology tools and machine translation to capture global translation and interpretation demand.
Shares in Tokyo-listed Honyaku Center (2483:JP) have slightly come off their October 2018 highs and the company’s market capitalization stands at USD 77m at the time of writing.
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