IR Meetings

Based on various experiments, I think there is 20-30% growth potential for daily sales. We will implement the AI.CO challenge in a certain area, and then brush up on these efforts with the knowledge of MC and KDDI, and then rollout the best practices to all stores. There is also growth potential in delivery services that transcend location. We will do our best to report results at an early stage. (President Takemasu)

We need to raise wages, ensure profits for our franchisees, and run a sustainable business, and to do that we still need to expand our sales. With the deployment of AI.CO and the Happy Lawson Project, etc., we are strongly feeling that daily sales are expanding. We are thinking about what kind of Lawson, Inc. we want to become by 2030. Domestic convenience stores are the core, and we will expand sales by more than double digit percentages. Although it is not a commitment, we would like to seek to expand sales by another 20% or 30% and firmly gain the evaluation of our customers. With regard to the proposal to acquire Lawson, MC and KDDI have formed a solid team, so I think all Lawson can do is to thoroughly refine our own business operations and do our best to always receive the correct evaluation from our customers. (President Takemasu)

The introduction of AI.CO has greatly improved the time it takes to place orders. The timing of product discounts was previously based on the experience of employees, but using AI.CO's discount recommendations has led to a reduction in operations, an increase in sales, and a reduction in food loss. In the future, I think that the practical application and introduction of display robots and cleaning robots will lead to a reduction in operations. By making efforts to streamline each of our operations, including our cash register operations, in a way that our customers will find appealing, I think we can achieve 30% reduction in five years, by 2030.
Previous semi-automatic ordering system focused on forecasting the needs of the next day, while for AI.CO, the focus was changed to maximizing store profits. It led to reforms that enabled operations that could reliably sell out at some stores in rural areas. After being refined and deployed at all stores in July, it was firmly established at each store and led to maximizing the profits of the franchisees. (President Takemasu)

Last month, I visited AI-related companies on the west coast, and everyone was very interested in retail technology, to the extent that they were talking about Lawson. Walmart is very successful in the United States, and there was even talk of bringing that technology to Japan. We have received many offers from big tech companies to work together on these efforts, so we would like to consider incorporating new technologies. With over 14,000 locations, convenience stores are important as customer contact points, but they also have value as real locations. Overseas big tech companies are imagining what they can do when the time comes to place GPUs and other devices close to customers. Japan's convenience stores are something that the world can be proud of. The declining birthrate and aging population, as well as regional challenges that Japan will face in the future, are areas in which Japan will be the first to take on these challenges. The role of convenience stores is therefore extremely important. There is a possibility that the experience gained in overcoming these challenges can be rolled out to the overseas locations where MC has expanded to date. I want to add new experiences and added value to convenience stores, which are significant treasures of Japan, and make them something that can also be used overseas. (President Takahashi)

MC invested 20% in Lawson in 2000. At the time, digitization was not making progress in IT or telecommunications, but the company believed that convenience stores would become a part of the basic infrastructure of people's lives. It was a quarter of a century later, in 2017, that the company increased its investment to 50.1% and made Lawson a subsidiary, and the digital age had arrived. As for the physical aspects, we were able to procure raw materials and manufacture products, but we lacked the piece of telecommunications, and we were able to find a very good partner. I think that MC and KDDI will play a role in providing solid support for Lawson.
In addition, Lawson has already expanded into China and other parts of Asia, but by combining the overseas assets of KDDI with MC's own, we hope to be able to rollout convenience stores overseas. President Takahashi has also said that Japan's unique convenience stores are a national treasure, so we would be delighted if we could expand our business overseas, and we hope that you will understand that our aim in this instance is to seek a partner with the ability to rollout overseas through Lawson. (President Nakanishi)

Our brand is positioned as a service for each of our target users. We announced povo 3.0 recently. From now on we have an image of telecommunications lines being embedded in various services, and in this instance, we are proposing povo as a service that can be embedded in convenience stores. Two years ago, there was a communication failure, and from now on, having a backup line will also support the peace of mind of our lives. By using this service, whether it is the main line or the backup line, we seek to make you want to go to the convenience stores. (President Takahashi)