FAN Communications Inc. (TSE: 2461), the Tokyo company behind the A8.net affiliate-advertising platform, told regulators it is scrapping both its earnings target for the year to December 2026 and the three-year growth plan it unveiled in February 2025. The company blamed weak first-half results, and it named a specific culprit: search engines that now answer users' questions directly, without sending them to a website at all.
In the semiannual securities report filed with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau on August 14, 2026, FAN Communications said consolidated net sales fell 5.8% year-on-year to ¥3.43bn in the six months to June, down from ¥3.64bn a year earlier. Operating profit dropped 54.0% to ¥489.4mn, ordinary income fell 56.1% to ¥459.5mn, and net profit attributable to shareholders collapsed 71.3% to ¥198.8mn.
| Metric | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net sales | ¥3.64bn | ¥3.43bn | -5.8% |
| Ordinary income | ¥1.05bn | ¥459.5mn | -56.1% |
| Net profit (parent) | ¥693.8mn | ¥198.8mn | -71.3% |
AI Overview, not just younger users switching to social search
The filing points at "AI Overview," the generative-AI search summaries that answer information-seeking queries without a click-through, as a structural drag on its CPA Solutions segment, home to the flagship A8.net affiliate service and the A8app mobile-app referral tool. Segment sales fell 17.0% to ¥2.48bn and segment profit fell 19.8% to ¥1.61bn. Management said fewer advertisers were active on A8.net, commission rates paid on referrals declined, and certain major advertisers cut their ad-spending budgets; one advertiser's pullback was the single largest factor behind the segment's decline, with reduced conversions at SEO-dependent affiliate media adding further structural pressure.
The company drew a distinction between this shift and past ones. Younger users migrating to social-media search was a generational change; the AI Overview effect, it said, is reaching a broad range of age groups and amounts to a major turning point for the whole digital marketing market, pushing both advertisers and media operators to redesign content so that AI systems will cite or recommend it.
Guidance and mid-term plan both withdrawn
Given the scale of the first-half miss, FAN Communications withdrew its full-year 2026 consolidated earnings forecast and the medium-term management plan it published in February 2025, which had targeted client-network expansion, operating-profit growth, and a higher return on equity through 2027. The filing gives no replacement figures or a timetable for reissuing guidance.
Not every part of the business is shrinking. The Strategic Business segment, which houses fan marketing, influencer marketing, LINE marketing, and game publishing, grew sales 45.1% to ¥953.6mn, though its segment loss widened to ¥472.7mn from ¥330.3mn a year earlier as the company kept investing in new offerings. On June 1, 2026, FAN Communications acquired outright a company it has now folded into that segment, recording ¥123.6mn of goodwill from the deal. The filing gives no purchase price, no rationale, and no English-language name for the acquired firm, only that it is now fully consolidated.