Sun* Inc.
4053・Prime Market・Information & Communication
Business
Sun Asterisk Inc. operates the Digital Creative Studio Business (Single Segment), which supports corporate digital transformation (DX) and new business development. The business comprises three service lines: "Creative & Engineering," which provides an end-to-end offering from business conception through value validation, product development, and talent support; "Talent Platform," which handles the discovery, development, and referral of IT talent; and "Incubation & Others," which develops and operates the company's own entertainment-related services. Main clients include enterprise companies (such as those included in the Nikkei 225/400/500) and SMB companies including startups, with 285 unique clients in FY2025 (ending December 2025). The company has a strength in its development structure via a global IT team, with over 1,000 engineers based mainly in Asian locations centered on Vietnam.
Business Model
The core "Creative & Engineering" segment is centered on ongoing product development support under quasi-delegation and contract-based agreements, underpinned by stock-type revenue with high customer stickiness, reflected in a high monthly average transaction continuation rate of 92.7%. The "Talent Platform" segment consists of fee income from recruitment placement, staffing, and hiring support, while "Incubation & Others" comprises game advertising revenue, fan club monthly subscription fees, and contract development revenue. In FY2025 (ending December 2025), net sales were ¥14,835 million, with Creative & Engineering accounting for ¥11,229 million, or approximately 75.7% of the total.
Company Strengths
The Creative & Engineering business recorded a 72-month average monthly transaction continuation rate of 92.7%. The number of unique customers has continued to expand from 182 companies in FY2020 (ending December 2020) to 285 companies in FY2025 (ending December 2025), with enterprise customers increasing from 44 to 124 over the same period. Average monthly customer revenue also rose from ¥3.70 million to ¥5.06 million, reflecting improvement in both the quality and scale of the customer base.
Subsidiary Sun Asterisk Vietnam Co., Ltd operates three sites in Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City, employing over 1,000 engineers. Collaboration with Japanese-speaking Vietnamese PMs and engineers enables a smooth development structure. The company promotes agile development, DevOps, and AI Ready SDLC, and its ability to flexibly respond to clients' business expansion needs serves as a key differentiator from competitors.
Starting from a JICA technical cooperation project in 2006, the company now conducts industry-academia collaboration with 12 universities across Asia. As of January 1, 2026, the program has 2,703 enrolled participants, and the company has been recognized by the Faculty of Information Technology at Hanoi University of Science and Technology as its most important partner. Through a cyclical model of hiring developed talent internally and referring them to clients, the company simultaneously secures engineers and supplies talent to customers.
ENVALITH's Perspective
Performance Trend
Revenue rose for five consecutive fiscal periods, from ¥8,031 million in FY2021 to ¥14,835 million in FY2025. Meanwhile, operating profit peaked at ¥1,775 million in FY2023 before declining sharply for two consecutive periods, to ¥1,444 million in FY2024 and ¥1,052 million in FY2025. However, in Q1 of FY2026 (December 2026 fiscal year; January–March 2026), the company saw a sharp recovery, with revenue of ¥4,408 million (up 24.6% year on year), operating profit of ¥622 million (up 113.2% year on year), and quarterly profit attributable to owners of the parent of ¥417 million (up 82.8% year on year). Solid continued orders from existing Creative & Engineering clients and the consolidation contribution from MIXENSE and Global Gear drove the revenue increase. As for the external environment, a gradual recovery in the domestic economy and improvements in employment and income conditions are underpinning demand for DX investment, although uncertainty remains due to volatility in global financial and capital markets.
Growth Strategy
Parallel pursuit of expanding customer count and per-customer revenue alongside business advancement through M&A and AI utilization
Increasing per-customer revenue through expanded DX support for enterprise companies is a key priority. Unique customer count reached 204 companies and average monthly customer revenue reached ¥5,881 thousand in Q1 FY2026 (ending December 2026), both up year on year, with stable, continued orders confirmed from existing customers.
Global Gear became a subsidiary in July 2025, and MIXENSE became a subsidiary in January 2026. MIXENSE's strengths lie in business and control system development, and the aim is to expand the value proposition in the digitization domain and strengthen DX support through customer base collaboration. Acquisition cost was ¥900 million, with goodwill of ¥494 million (provisional figure).
The company is promoting the advancement of development processes through AI utilization (AI Ready SDLC), aiming to improve engineering productivity and expand the added value of services provided. This is seen as contributing to some degree to the improvement in gross profit margin (50.3% in Q1 FY2026).
The company has postponed its initially planned adoption of IFRS from the first quarter and now plans to adopt IFRS from the full-year results for FY2026 (ending December 2026) (January to December 2026). This decision reflects the need for careful consideration of accounting treatment and disclosure information. Full-year earnings forecasts under IFRS have already been disclosed, showing revenue of ¥18,201 million and operating profit of ¥1,714 million.
Last updated: July 17, 2026