Message from the President

When our founder, Shoya Honda, traveled to the United States, he was impressed by the emergence of suburban stores as the motorization of North American society progressed. One type of store that particularly caught his eye was the home center. Convinced that consumers in Japan, their food and clothing needs having been met, would soon turn their eyes toward their living environments, he decided in 1975 to establish “Joyful Honda,” with the theme of “making living environments richer and more comfortable.”
The company’s name, “Joyful Honda,” is imbued with the founder’s wish to bring smiles and enjoyment and to create joy and dreams together with customers. Even today, as needs and channels have become increasingly diverse, the joy of local communities is our joy, and eliminating customers’ “negatives” and delivering new value has been our style since the very beginning.
Without being bound by the conventions of the home center, we will build stores that are connected to locals with strong bonds of trust and that are loved by their local communities. We also aim to create stores where our employees can feel pride and joy in working in those local communities and in our stores.
We will continue our “innovation” and “challenge” to be the kind of stores that customers will think of first, both in normal times and when they have a problem to solve.

Never forgetting our beginnings, we look forward to welcoming you to the new Joyful Honda!

Our basic policy for fiscal 2024 is “returning to our roots and creating a new corporate culture.” In order to return to and act faithfully with these roots and share our new values as a company, we have been focusing on the following three themes.
(1) “Investing in people”
(2) “Breaking away from homogenized competition”
(3) “Contributing to the realization of a sustainable and prosperous society”

 

In “investing in people,” we are undertaking initiatives to provide a working environment where employees can work long-term with peace of mind. And by enhancing compensation and welfare benefits, we are aiming to improve the job satisfaction and motivation of our employees, which will lead to securing a stable supply of talented human resources and increased support from our customers, business partners, and local communities, ultimately contributing to improving our corporate value. Specifically, we have implemented the following.
• Increasing the monthly base salary for regular employees
• Introducing a “scholarship repayment support system” for regular employees
• Continuously increasing the number of days off per year for regular employees
• Extending the re-employment age for hourly employees from 70 to 75
• Introducing a pay raise system for hourly employees after age 60
• Position transfers (from hourly employees to regular employees)
• Setting up a new special paid leave, “refreshment leave,” for hourly employees
• Changing appearance rules in the company to create a workplace that respects diversity and allows employees to work in their own way
As an external project to promote diversity, we also opened a pop-up store, “JOYFUL Petit,” (selling household goods, greenery, disaster prevention supplies, and more) which was planned and managed primarily by female employees, in the “Kashiwa Modi” commercial facility in Kashiwa City, Chiba Prefecture, operated by Marui Co., Ltd. This initiative is creating opportunities that enable anyone to take on the challenge of new business activities, and is fostering a workplace environment in which all employees can work with satisfaction.
We also promoted DX to improve the efficiency and productivity of store operations, and worked to improve customer convenience by introducing full-self-checkout machines and registers dedicated to cashless payments in addition to semi-self-checkout machines. Furthermore, we have put a system in place that outsources inventory operations, allowing employees to focus on sales.
As a result of these efforts, we achieved a higher score in our job satisfaction survey than what we saw in the previous fiscal year.

 

In “breaking away from homogenized competition,” we accelerated the opening of “Hondaya” locations, specialty stores for professionals based on the concept of a “shop for craftsmen,” opening the Utsunomiya Motoimaizumi store in Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Prefecture, in February 2024, and the Tachikawa Saiwaicho store in Tachikawa City, Tokyo, in June of the same year. By utilizing existing furnished properties for both stores, we were able to both reduce the cost and shorten the time required to open the new stores, allowing us to realize an efficient and speedy store opening strategy. We will continue to promote the opening of specialty stores while forming a dominant position with existing home improvement centers.
In addition to opening dedicated locations, we also promoted the establishment of “Hondaya in-store shops” in existing home improvement centers, and expanded the sales floors of materials and professional goods at existing stores by incorporating the know-how we have gained from Hondaya. In the fiscal year under review, four stores were completed: the Arakawaoki store, the Moriya store, the Oyama Station store, and the Kimitsu store. The continuous introduction of high value-added and highly specialized products on the sales floors for other product groups has led to the creation of new needs and proposals.
In addition, as a new service category, we acquired NAGOMI KOUBOU Ltd., a company that repairs damage to detached houses and newly built condominiums, etc., as a subsidiary, which will enable us to respond to a wide range of housing issues our customers face, and we will strive to achieve synergistic effects by integrating this with our renovation business.

 

In “contributing to the realization of a sustainable and prosperous society,” we are focusing on building stores with a lower environmental impact with the aim of realizing a prosperous future and a decarbonized society. We are promoting the use of renewable energy through solar power generation and storage battery systems that utilize PPAs (Note) at our own stores, and we are strengthening our efforts to achieve carbon neutrality. Furthermore, we are actively introducing environmentally friendly sustainable products such as FSC-certified products.
As part of our efforts to revitalize local communities, we hold joint events together with local governments and local private companies as a place to communicate with local customers. We have also signed a sponsorship agreement with the Ibaraki Robots, a professional basketball team based in Ibaraki Prefecture that competes in the B.League. We support the Ibaraki Robots together with the local community, actively promote the development of the next generation through sports, and carry out activities that contribute to the local community. In addition, we are promoting the conclusion of disaster agreements in preparation for natural disasters such as torrential rainfall. During the fiscal year under review, we concluded comprehensive disaster cooperation agreements with Satte City, Saitama Prefecture on March 13, 2024, and Yoshioka Town, Gunma Prefecture on March 21, 2024, bringing our total number of agreements to 20 agreements with 18 local governments.
(Note) A business model in which solar power generation companies install and manage solar power generation facilities using space such as the roofs of our stores

 

As a result, net sales for the fiscal year under review were 126,894 million yen (up 2.9% year on year), operating income was 10,568 million yen (down 4.8% year on year), ordinary income was 11,645 million yen (down 4.9% year on year), and profit was 9,091 million yen (up 6.6% year on year).

Sales of lumber and building materials were sluggish due to a decrease in housing starts resulting from soaring raw material prices and increased acquisition costs. However, sales of branded safety shoes and fan-equipped workwear continued to be strong, thanks in part to the impact of the opening of the JOYHON Yoshioka mega-store in April 2023 and two new stand-alone Hondaya specialty shops for craftsmen, as well as Hondaya in-store shops in existing home improvement centers, during the fiscal year under review. That said, sales of flowers and seedlings were sluggish in the Garden Center division due to the scorching summer heat, and sales of seasonal products such as heaters were sluggish due to the warm winter.
As a result of the above, net sales for the Housing-related segment for the fiscal year under review were 72,095 million yen (up 1.9% year on year).

As COVID-19 shifted to Class 5 disease in May 2023, there were more opportunities to go out and demand for recreational goods recovered, although not completely. Also, in April of the same year, bicycle helmets became mandatory, and the trend for cycling products improved. Regarding pets, we are continuing to hold dog and cat adoption events, which lead to the sale of food and accessories. Sales of high value-added food products using functional and natural ingredients were particularly strong. Furthermore, due to heightened awareness of disaster prevention, sales of emergency supplies such as emergency food and water, portable power supplies, and portable toilets were strong.
As a result of the above, net sales for the Life-related segment for the fiscal year under review were 54,799 million yen (up 4.1% year on year).