SBC Medical Group Holdings Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call - Profitability Normalizes After Restructuring; AI and Longevity Become Growth Playbooks

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Results briefing call. This meeting will be led by CEO Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Executive Vice President, CFO, COO, and AI Evangelist Yuya Yoshida, and myself, IR Manager Fukui, who will be moderating today. Thank you for your cooperation in advance. Here is today’s program. As a new initiative, we will begin with a 10-minute presentation by an AI avatar. Please rest assured that the content has been reviewed in advance. Following that, Aikawa will deliver a message, and then we will move on to a Q&A session. Please click the Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen, enter your message, and submit it. Now, let’s begin the presentation.

Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining SBC Medical Group Holdings conference call. My name is Yoshiyuki Aikawa, CEO of SBC Medical Group Holdings. Today, I will walk you through our performance for the fourth quarter and full year of fiscal 2025, followed by an update on our business strategy and capital policy. Let me begin with highlights from our clinic operations. As of the end of December 2025, we were operating 283 locations, and the number of customers served over the trailing twelve months reached 6.63 million. While same-store sales were slightly below the prior year, total clinic revenue for the full year reached $1,163 million, representing 2% year-over-year growth.

Most encouragingly, average revenue per customer, which had been on a declining trend, rebounded significantly in the fourth quarter, reaching $316, an 11% increase year-over-year. We are now seeing both customer growth and improving unit economics moving in the same direction, which we view as a meaningful positive for the business going forward. Turning to the charts, average revenue per visit has been recovering steadily on a quarterly basis, and total clinic revenue has begun to reflect that same upward trajectory. We are seeing genuine momentum in the underlying trend, and if this continues, we believe it will mark an important inflection point for the company’s long-term growth. Next, let me highlight key developments across our business in FY 2025. In our domestic core operations, we made meaningful progress on several fronts.

Recovery in customer spending, continued expansion of our dermatology customer base, the establishment of the largest AGA hair loss treatment network in Japan, and further expansion in orthopedics and fertility treatment. We also strengthened our domestic platform through a series of additions. The opening of NEO Skin Clinic and Hadano Aozora Clinic, the joining of JUN CLINIC, and the consolidation of Waqoo through a tender offer. These developments further expand our long-term growth foundation. Internationally, while still in the early stages, we made concrete progress by making a strategic investment in OrangeTwist in the United States and forming a partnership with BLEZ ASIA in Thailand, our first tangible steps toward a broader global presence. Moving on to our financial highlights. Let me walk you through our full year 2025 performance. Full year revenue came in at $174 million, a decrease of 15% from the prior year.

This was primarily driven by the business restructuring initiatives we undertook throughout 2024, as well as the impact of the fee structure changes implemented in April 2025. Net income attributable to our shareholders, however, grew 9% year-over-year to $51 million, and EPS increased 4% to $0.50. The key driver behind this improvement is straightforward. In the prior year, we incurred significant one-time costs associated with our listing process and asset revaluations. Those costs did not recur this year, bringing our cost structure back to a normalized level. EBITDA was $70 million with an EBITDA margin of 40.4%. We continue to maintain a strong level of profitability, and we believe the underlying earnings power of our business remains healthy.

In summary, while revenue reflected the impact of our structural transition, our cost structure has normalized and our profitability metrics have improved. That is the defining story of fiscal year 2025. Let me now turn to our strategy. Our core strategic pillars remain unchanged: aesthetic dermatology, non-aesthetic healthcare, and global expansion. We are, however, introducing two unifying themes across these pillars: longevity and AI-driven healthcare. Our goal is to build a healthcare platform that supports people in living longer, healthier, and more vibrant lives, bringing together aesthetic medicine and broader healthcare services under one roof. To execute on our longevity strategy, we are launching SBC Wellness 2.0, an upgraded corporate wellness platform in Japan. Inspired by leading models in the United States, this platform will integrate biomarker analysis, AI-powered body diagnostics, personalized AI recommendations, and continuous health coaching.

By offering this through corporate benefits programs, we can scale our customer base efficiently while keeping marketing costs low. Our goal is to create an entirely new category of performance medicine. This initiative positions us to establish early leadership in Japan’s emerging longevity market. The model combines recurring subscription revenue with high-margin individual medical services, while the accumulation of medical data and evidence will further sharpen our AI capabilities over time. With our nationwide clinic network and breadth of medical services, SBC is uniquely placed to deliver a truly comprehensive platform in this space. In dermatology, our multi-brand strategy is becoming increasingly important. As customer needs grow more segmented, no single brand can capture the full range of demand. By positioning multiple brands across different customer profiles and enabling referrals within the group, we can maximize lifetime value per customer.

We also believe that formats such as NEO Skin Clinic, which focus on aesthetic dermatology, have relatively low cultural dependency, making them well-suited for future international expansion. Our newer brands are off to a strong start. NEO Skin Clinic is building revenue steadily in the premium segment, while JUN CLINIC is attracting highly beauty-conscious customers. Through targeted segmentation and thoughtful brand positioning, we aim to capture demand across multiple customer profiles and continue expanding horizontally. Expanding into non-aesthetic healthcare is a key strategy for both revenue diversification and long-term growth. Our competitive edge here draws directly on capabilities developed in aesthetic medicine, advanced marketing and CRM, standardized clinic operations, and service models that integrate both private pay and insurance-based care. We intend to apply these strengths across additional medical fields. Our AGA hair loss treatment network has grown to become one of the largest in Japan.

We are also expanding in orthopedics and fertility treatment, with new clinics opening in both areas. Going forward, we will accelerate growth through a combination of organic expansion and targeted M&A, focusing on fields where our operational strengths can deliver the greatest impact. Our global expansion strategy starts from a stable and profitable domestic base in Japan. From there, we are focused on building a strong operating platform in the United States and exploring regional expansion and B2B healthcare opportunities across Asia. Our approach is deliberate. Partner with trusted local operators, identify winning models in each market, and scale selectively from there. In the United States, we are growing our med spa business through our strategic investment in OrangeTwist. By combining SBC’s high-efficiency clinic model with OrangeTwist’s premium experience and strong local management, we aim to accelerate new clinic openings and expand into longevity-related services.

Longer term, we also see opportunities to bring successful models back to Japan and other Asian markets. In Southeast Asia, we will leverage Japan’s geographic proximity and strong brand recognition. Given a market structure dominated by smaller clinics, we see significant B2B healthcare opportunities in product distribution, service partnerships, and beyond. We will evaluate opportunities country by country and scale where we find a clear competitive edge. AI is a foundational pillar supporting both growth and efficiency across the organization. By converting our extensive clinical, customer, and operational data into AI learning assets, we aim to build a competitive moat that is genuinely difficult to replicate. AI will enable more precise recommendations, a better customer experience, and a more efficient operating model. We are deploying AI across multiple areas. Automated booking and inquiry handling, AI-assisted counseling, 24-hour AI concierge services, and optimization of headquarters functions.

By redesigning the customer journey end to end, we aim to drive revenue growth while improving scalability and reducing structural costs. Finally, let me touch on our capital allocation policy. Our fundamental approach is to prioritize growth investments, both domestically and internationally, as the foundation of everything we do while maximizing shareholder value. Within that framework, we will also address liquidity improvements and shareholder returns as important complementary themes, evaluating them with flexibility and disclosing updates in a timely and transparent manner. Thank you very much for your attention.

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: Thank you very much. Next, we will hear a message from Aikawa, CEO. We look forward to hearing from you now. I think you are muted.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Hello, everyone, and thank you very much for gathering and participating in this conference call out of your busy schedule. My name is Aikawa. I am a CEO of this company. As has been introduced or explained in the presentation, the aesthetic medicine clinic was established by our team, and SBC clinics have continued to grow. In 25 years, in 2025, the growth rate hasn’t been very strong for the first time in our history. Now recently, since the latter half of last year, we started to see the recovery into this year as well. We still continue to see strong growth continuing into this year.

Now going back to the growth trajectory that we used to have before the slow growth period, and we have seen that, and we have felt a strong performance in the aesthetic medicine as well. The aesthetic dermatology has been growing steadily in Japan, and the growth rate has been almost at 10% for the entire market every year. We are trying to achieve above the market growth rate in the aesthetic medicine area. We would like to continue to grow this business going forward. Other than that, we are engaged in the orthopedics and dermatology and dentistry and the fertility treatment area, for both the insurance-based care as well as the private pay care in combination in some of these areas. In those areas, we would like to be number one in Japan.

Currently in Japan, the population is aging and now JPY 48 trillion is being spent per year for medical expenditures. There is such a huge market. For some time, we believe that the growth can continue in this JPY 48 trillion domestic Japanese market if we can take at least 10% of the market. I believe that the aesthetic medicine area is continuing to grow. Therefore, we would like to continue to grow in this market as well. Our strategy, we entered into the aesthetic surgery, and also we were listed on the Nasdaq market compared to other general medical organizations. We believe that we have been able to gather many excellent talents.

That’s what I have felt in terms of the marketing capabilities as well as capabilities in the financials. Compared to other medical institutions, we believe that strong performers in our institutions. Therefore, we believe that if we expand our business scope into the general or non-aesthetic areas, we believe that we can continue to be competitive. As I said earlier, dentistry and orthopedics and fertility treatment and the general dermatology, we believe that there is still untapped huge market in Japan. Therefore, we believe that we will be able to continue in these areas as well. At least by 2035, currently we are engaged in the aesthetic surgery, aesthetic dermatology and AGA. We have gained a number one position in Japanese market, but for other areas such as dentistry and orthopedics and fertility treatment and dermatology as well.

In nine years, up until 2035, we aim at gaining number one position in Japanese market. This is how we are struggling and working very hard toward that goal. That’s the end of my message. Thank you very much.

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: Aiko-san, our CEO, thank you very much. We now would like to move on to Q&A session. At the bottom of the screen, there is a Q&A icon, so please click that icon and enter your message and send it to us. First, the healthcare currently in Japan and aesthetic medicine market, what’s the current status? Please elaborate.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: As I mentioned a bit earlier, every year Aesthetic dermatology is growing by 10% every year. Aesthetic surgery is growing about 3% every year. As a market, Aesthetic dermatology has a bigger market. In our performance, Aesthetic dermatology 70%, Aesthetic surgery 30%. That’s the ratio between the two. We are focusing on Aesthetic dermatology field, so we’d like to get on the bandwagon to increase the growth going forward. Thank you very much.

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: Next, regarding the SBC Wellness business. SBC Wellness for fiscal year 2026, do you think this is going to be the driver for the growth in. Also, could you please give us your thought on the margin or profitability?

Yuya Yoshida, Executive Vice President, CFO, COO, and AI Evangelist, SBC Medical Group Holdings: All right. Yoshida is going to respond. In fiscal year 2026, frankly speaking, this is not considered to be a large driver for revenue, but rather the objective is through this wellness longevity, including the aesthetic medicine and customers who will become the users of SBC’s first services. We are aiming at expanding the customer base first so that the new customers will have a good exposure with SBC’s services. Therefore, I think that it is still premature to mention any revenue target for this business. Thank you very much. If I may add regarding this system for the wellness business, once the more companies which are becoming our users of our services, and then that means that it will increase the users whom we are going to be approaching.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Currently, the number is how many? For the number of customers for wellness, with 160 companies, 50,000 individuals. With the 160 companies and the 50,000 individuals are the ones who are able to make approach. We can access this through this route. The more companies who join our service network and then-

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: The cost for marketing can be reduced more, and that means that we’ll be able to have a long-standing relationship with these individuals. Lifestyle related services can be offered to them as well in an increasing manner. We are sure that in five or 10 years, this is the strategy for this, for the future, we’d like to grow this business. Next, another question about wellness. I’d like to have a clearer image about services using the existing clinics to deploy the services. Or are you going to set up the specialized clinics to expand? What’s your image? At the clinic level, how we are going to roll out our services, we are trying to develop a strategy right now, and the rollout in Japan at specialized clinic is one possibility.

In the United States we have a stake in the OrangeTwist with their executives. How to enter into the longevity market is now under discussion with them. OrangeTwist channel might be utilized to have the longevity market or business in the United States to have experiments at other clinics there. Thank you very much. As a treatment, each company and staff members’ health and productivity hopefully would be increased. That’s the strong wish. For us, testosterone hormonal treatment, for example, can be offered, and then staff can be motivated, and we can increase their productivity. That can be great for our corporate customers as well. Thank you very much. Next question is about AI. The new CTO has joined your team, and you are promoting the policies related to AI.

Going forward, what kind of operational improvement do you expect or how this technology can lead to the enhanced revenue? On this page that you are seeing, there are three main channels. First one is related to the headquarters enhancing efficiency, and another is call center. Currently, humans are receiving phone calls, and that will be automated. Furthermore, in the field of clinics, there will be numerical impacts because there are so many people who are working in these clinics. Therefore, we needed to improve the operation in clinics. These are the three approaches for which we are currently preparing products. This year at SBC, we would like to create the success cases. That is the focus of us next year. From next year onward, we will be considering the external sales of these technologies.

Shao, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Shao, our CTO, has been hired, and he has the experience of the automation of the call center with AI and also mission critical system have been updated by him. Utilizing that experience, the SBC’s technology capability will be enhanced by him. Thank you. Next, M&A is the topic of the next question. In the future M&A strategy, what the company is considering? Regarding M&A, by 2035, we’d like to get the number one position in Japan in dentistry, orthopedics, fertility treatment, and dermatology. If there is a good deal, we’d like to engage in M&A and in aesthetic medicine as well. The patient’s needs are diversifying these days. LVMH and European brands can be utilized to address this.

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: Also in aesthetic medicine, if there’s a good deal, we’d like to engage in M&A actively, if I may add, also overseas, focusing on B2B. We have a growth strategy there. Like OrangeTwist, we can make investments and leverage M&A according to assumptions. Thank you very much. Next is the question about America. In December last year, minority investment was made into OrangeTwist. As a next step, what kind of next steps do you have in your mind? Expansion of the locations, do you think will come? Regarding the OrangeTwist, together with the people in the field, since we have made investment into that, and the first meeting was held last month with people in the field, and we could learn a lot.

We believe that we have things that we are able to offer to them regarding experience in the aesthetic medicine and expertise will be shared with OrangeTwist. OrangeTwist is also number one in the group to be in the U.S. market. That is the objective for OrangeTwist. Let me add to what Aikawa CEO mentioned. I believe that there are three things to mention. First, it’s SBC’s marketing know-hows and expertise in these areas will be utilized.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Another is, as we discussed earlier, regarding the new wellness or longevity market. Together with OrangeTwist, we are going to try to enter into these markets. A third one is regarding the use of AI technologies. We believe that there is still much room for cost reduction at OrangeTwist. The strengths of OrangeTwist is the high premium value and of experience by customers. Once they go to visit and seek the service by OrangeTwist, they will be intrigued by it. Still there are human labor involved, therefore, if we can optimize that, we will be able to enhance the profitability, therefore it will lead to the win-win between SBC and OrangeTwist.

Analyst/Participant: Another question about OrangeTwist. Into the future, collaboration in business, Asian markets and the entry into the Japanese market, are those under consideration?

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: Right. OrangeTwist brand, how much we can grow the OrangeTwist brand, so it will depend on that. Recently, similar services are being offered by clinics more often, so OrangeTwist branding hopefully can be focused on so that it can grow as a brand accepted globally. We’d like to roll it out in Asia and also in Japan.

Analyst/Participant: Thank you very much.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Next question is about medical tourism going forward. For example, in Cancún, in Mexico, do you consider any potential medical tourism related business? For example, fertility treatment, have you considered any potential business there?

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: For now, from Mexico to Japan for medical tourism to get them fertility treatment, we do not have any plan on this. Technologies in the field of fertility treatment in Japan is said to have the cutting-edge top level technologies in Asia. Asia is expected to have more and more population growing, therefore, for Asia market, we may be able to receive medical tourists for fertility treatment.

Analyst/Participant: Next is a financial question. The company has a lot of cash, so, I have a question on that. The company has a lot of cash and interest seems to be a small amount. Any comment on this?

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: Yoshida would like to respond. In principle, we are having a safe investment, so they have yen deposits, so the interest revenue is limited. We have abundant cash, so we can use it to invest to enjoy returns. That’s one possible approach. As Aikawa, CEO said, in Japan we’d like to become the number one position. In drawing a growth strategy, there are more attractive M&A opportunities, so more liquid and safer investments can be used by having cash so that we can use the money for M&A flexibly. As Yoshida mentioned, we have a strategy to proceed with M&A actively. That’s considered important, so as soon as possible we’d like to have cash. That’s why we are taking this kind of a strategy. Thank you very much.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Next is for fiscal year 2026, various measures are going to be taken for investment into new business areas. What size of the investment do you have in your mind?

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: For M&A, which are going to be our main areas of investment, it will depend on the opportunity and also it depends on the scale or size of the counterpart. It will determine the size of investment. If there are good opportunities, and then cash plus some borrowings in order to achieve the M&A.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: If I may add, of course, for the growth of our business, we will be aggressively making investments, proactively making investment. In order to support such a growth or potential, we need to have the good capability of generating cash, of course, through growing the business itself and a growth strategy is necessary. As I said earlier, AI utilization. Even if the size and number of AI clinics is increasing, costs will not be expanded, or rather we will be able to optimize the cost structure so that we can optimize the cost. That is the area we are aiming at. Thank you very much.

Analyst/Participant: In December last year, a share buyback program was approved, and what’s your view on this program?

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: May I?

Analyst/Participant: Yes.

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: Share Buyback Program was set. In principle, for the developments in the market, if the value is under what we think, we should be able to buy back our shares flexibly. That’s our main objective. Up until now, using the program has not occurred yet. If the market price fluctuation is too big, coming under our level, then we are assuming Share Buyback flexibly. Thank you very much.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), SBC Medical Group Holdings: Going back to businesses. In fiscal year 2026, what is going to be the biggest, strongest growth driver?

Fukui, IR Manager, SBC Medical Group Holdings: For 2026, this year, aesthetic dermatology in Japan, the market, is growing very rapidly. Us, in this, aesthetic dermatology, the growth rate for us is also high. The biggest, pillar to support, profitability is related to the growth of, aesthetic dermatology.

Analyst/Participant: Thank you very much. It’s almost time, so we’d like to close today’s call. Thank you very much for joining the SBC Medical Group Holdings FY 2025 full year financial results announcement meeting. Thank you very much for joining and thank you very much for your future support as well. With this, we’d like to close today’s meeting. Thank you very much.