CEO Message
Following our vision "to create the 21st century's leading company," CyberAgent has expanded its business since its inception. We are currently working hard to meet our commitment to increasing revenue and profit from the FY2023 baseline. As a result, in FY2024, our three main businesses performed well, allowing us to revise our initial forecasts upward and achieve substantial gains.
By providing a wide variety of content, including MLB and other live sports events such as mahjong and shogi, anime, original programming, news of any kind, and disaster information, our TV for the future platform, ABEMA, has served as a social infrastructure with weekly viewership exceeding 30 million. In terms of monetization, we have made excellent progress achieving the first quarterly profit in the media business since we began to invest aggressively in ABEMA.
In our Advertising Business, we have not only achieved steady revenue growth but also improved margins by leveraging AI technology to drive business development and streamlining operations to increase productivity.
In our Game Business, after several years of development, we were able to deliver new high-quality titles, resulting in the first year-on-year increase in revenue and profit in three years since the slowdown following the extremely successful title in FY2021.
I have personally been working on succession planning since FY2022 to ensure that CyberAgent can be successfully passed on through the generations. This has included implementing training programs and putting my intuitive management decision-making process into words, all with a focus on developing managerial talents for the appointment of the next president in FY2026.
In line with this, we have recently introduced a new system to identify outstanding young talent and provide them with tailored opportunities to acquire the necessary skills to take on leadership roles in the near future.
Recognizing that our people are our greatest competitive advantage, we strive to ensure that they are highly motivated and excited about their work. Going forward, we will pursue sustainable business expansion by broadening the scope of each individual's responsibilities and promoting the growth of both our company and people.
Susumu Fujita Representative Director
Our Growth Story
Since its inception in 1998, CyberAgent has continued to invest in growth areas, with the internet as its primary business domain. In order to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment, we have developed multiple new businesses and successfully achieved long-term growth through a strategy of constant selection and concentration.
While our ever-expanding internet advertising business, driven by our operational and technological advantages that maximize advertising effectiveness, has been the foundation of our business since the beginning, we have also been striving to create a profitable media business for many years. "Ameba," launched in 2004 as a latecomer to its market, has established itself as one of Japan's largest blog services by taking full advantage of our operational and planning capabilities. Next, we recognized the advent of smartphones was a game changer. We quickly shifted our entire business to smartphones, and significantly increased our engineering staff, then developed over 100 apps in-house.
As a result of deploying a wide range of related services, including games and community services, under what we called the "try everything strategy," we realized that games and smartphones were a good match. We made our full-scale entry into the game business in earnest in 2009, around the same time that smartphones hit the market, and Cygames, which became a group company in 2011, has become a driving force as a hitmaker and has also built up one of Japan's largest development systems in the smartphone game industry. Even today, Cygames continues to develop new games while operating a large number of existing popular games, ranging from original IPs to mobile games based on popular IPs from other companies.
In 2016, as the environment matured with the proliferation of smartphones and video streaming services, we decided to make a new, major investment to launch ABEMA, the TV for the future, with the goal of reinventing television. We are in the process of developing it into a service that will permeate people's lives as a TV that anyone can watch anytime, anywhere, and enjoy everything from popular anime and sports to major international events.
Since our first executive retreat in 2003, we have focused on a management approach that makes the most of our human talent. Our mission statement, which serves as a code of conduct for employees, states that "we will make every effort to hiring talents," and this has helped us grow the number of employees in tandem with our businesses’ expansion.
Based on the concept of "freedom and self-responsibility," we have implemented many unique personnel policies to maximize the motivation of all employees. Our efforts have resulted in a culture where many employees are highly motivated to take on challenges without fear of failure.
We will strive for sustainable growth, with our ability to respond to change, which has been cultivated through the growth process of both CyberAgent and our human resources.
Company History
While identifying and aggressively entering the growth market, we have also clarified our criteria for withdrawing from businesses while simultaneously implementing a selection and concentration approach to expand our business.
Established CyberAgent, Inc.
[Advertising] Entered the internet advertising business
[Media] Launched a media business
First batch of new graduates joins the company
[Media] Released "Mail Vision," an HTML mail service
30% staff turnover rate
[Advertising] Established CA Search, Inc., a subsidiary specializing in search-based advertising
[Management/Finance] Entered the FX business (foreign exchange trading)
Decided to start holding executive retreats to strengthen HR
Developed a "merit-based lifetime
employment" system
Established the vision "to create the 21st century's leading company"
Launched the CAJJ Program, a business development strategy with defined withdrawal criteria
[Media] Released the "Ameba Blog" blog service
Began holding "Jigyotsuku," a new business contest
Launched "Career Challenge," an internal transfer listing system
Implemented "monthly department get-togethers" as a way to promote better communication
[Management/Investment] Launched an investment development business
Established a "Mission Statement" as our code of conduct
Began holding "Ashita Kaigi" (Meeting for Tomorrow), where employees participate in management decisions
Launched initiatives to strengthen technical capabilities as well as our hiring and training process for engineers
[Advertising] Carried out an absorption-type merger of CA Search, Inc., a subsidiary specializing in search-based advertising
[Advertising] Established CA Advance, Inc., a subsidiary specializing in internet advertising operations
Launched "CA8," an executive rotation system
[Games] Entering the game business
[Media] Released "Ameba Pigg," a virtual community space
[E-commerce] Carried out a subsidiary acquisition by applying the equity method for Netprice.com Inc. (currently BEENOS Inc.), an e-commerce company
[Management/Finance] Transferred our FX business (foreign exchange trading)
Retired the "Jigyotsuku" new business contest
Began "Project Report," a goal-setting initiative that evolved from an organization-based to individual-based concept
[Management/Media] Released "AbemaTV (now ABEMA)," the TV for the future
[Advertising] Established "AI Lab," an AI-driven R&D organization.
Introduced a "YMCA" initiative to encourage the active participation of young people
[Management/Media] Established the anime IP investment fund, "CA-Cygames Anime Fund," in partnership with Cygames
Introduced the "Energy" system to promote a more comfortable work environment for engineers
[Media] Our first original drama series is broadcast on AbemaTV
[Media] Entering the original anime production business by establishing the anime label, "CAAnimation"
Retired the "CA8" executive rotation system
Strengthened our corporate governance by separating executive from management functions
[Games] Cygames Inc. began developing games for consoles
[Management/Advertising] Closed the Ad Technology Division and established the "AI Business Headquarters"
[Advertising] Entered the DX (digital transformation) business
Started a "Remo Day" (Remote Work Day) work system (for all employees) that defines the days when employees come into the office and the days when they work remotely
12% staff turnover rate
[Game] Cygames Inc. releases the smartphone game "Umamusume: Pretty Derby"
Established our purpose
[Media] Converted content studio BABEL LABEL into a consolidated subsidiary
[Media] ABEMA, the TV for the future, provides free live coverage of all 64 FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 matches
Retired the CAJJ Program, a business development strategy with defined withdrawal criteria
Launched the "CAKK Program," a program to manage the growth of CyberAgent's businesses and subsidiaries
Launched "Triple-K Meetings" as an initiative to improve corporate value and define withdrawal criteria
[Media] Converted stage production company Nelke Planning Co., Ltd. into a consolidated subsidiary
[Advertising] Opened "Kiwami AI Odaiba Studio," a studio that specializes in using AI and CG technology
[Media] Converted content production company, Nitroplus Co., Ltd., Inc., into a consolidated subsidiary
【Copyright】
Umamusume: Pretty Derby： © Cygames, Inc.