Members, the Tokyo-listed digital services group, now expects an operating loss of ¥430mn for the half year to September 2026, against a previous forecast of a ¥320mn profit. Revenue is guided to ¥11.8bn from ¥12.59bn, a cut of ¥793mn; the same half a year earlier brought in ¥11.45bn. The company expects revenue and value-added revenue growth for the half year to stay only slightly positive, well below its earlier forecast.
| Metric | Previous forecast | Revised forecast |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ¥12.59bn | ¥11.8bn |
| Operating profit | ¥320mn | -¥430mn |
| Pre-tax profit | ¥320mn | -¥400mn |
| Profit attributable to owners | ¥224mn | -¥300mn |
| Basic earnings per share | ¥17.52 | -¥23.47 |
Two quantified causes
The revision notice splits the shortfall into two buckets. The first is external. Members says some customers cut investment because of an unstable world situation, including the Middle East, and that demand for staff specialised in routine execution work (operations and maintenance with clear requirements, coding, research and design production) fell faster than expected as generative AI substitution advanced. It puts the first-half revenue effect of this bucket at about ¥550mn against plan. The AI link is the company's own attribution.
The second bucket is internal, at about ¥250mn. Members is exiting low-price, low-growth legacy web operations work and had planned to fill the lost capacity by expanding its DX business. That expansion fell behind plan because, the company says, rapid AI development changed customer needs; its business units pushed ahead with AI-based services at speed but did not make up the delay. First-quarter utilization fell to 74.2%, down 1.9 percentage points from a year earlier. So AI appears in both explanations: directly in the ¥550mn item, and as the stated reason the DX expansion lagged in the ¥250mn item.
At its first-quarter results, Members says, it expected faster development of AX (AI transformation) services to offset the external hit. That did not happen in the first half, and the payoff is now expected from the second half onward.
The replacement growth engine
Members says demand for volume-based expansion of specialists in particular DX skills has shrunk sharply because of AI, while demand for AX talent is very large. It plans to replace its growth driver, shifting its on-site DX support strengths to AX, and aims to make the whole company an AX business during the year to March 2027.
The notice sets targets for that shift:
- Developing 30 or more AX services this fiscal year, led by an AX division created on 1 July 2026.
- Creating 1,000 AX-related sales opportunities.
- Producing 230 AX consultants and engineers, alongside an aim to build AI service supply capacity on a 3,000-person scale.
Members also plans to change the business model of its legacy operations work, including a move to value-based and non-headcount-based revenue.
The company says closing the utilization gap will take time, with a gradual recovery through the second half. It adds that its forecasts rest on currently available information and assumptions, and that actual results may differ.