Originating in copper smelting and electric wire manufacturing, the Group has continued developing a diverse range of products. Over the years, we have added insulating materials for electric wires, optical fibers, and wireless technologies, leading to the establishment of four core technologies—metals, polymers, photonics, and high-frequency. With this technological foundation as a strength, we have continued growing our businesses in step with the changing times.
On the other hand, it is also true that this diverse range of business activities has made it difficult for people to understand what kind of company we are. Within this context, we established the Furukawa Electric Group Purpose in March 2024 to clearly define our reason for being. With our Purpose—“Composing the core of a brighter world”—at the core, we aim to evolve into an indispensable corporate group by promoting management that helps realize a truly prosperous and sustainable society.
We are also actively promoting awareness about our Purpose to ensure it forms the basis of our management. Internally, we held workshops to deepen awareness, understanding, and empathy for the Purpose. We are creating more opportunities for employees to embrace the Purpose as their own and to see how it connects to their daily work. We will continue to promote such initiatives going forward.
Since FY2022, the Group has pursued initiatives under its Medium-term Management Plan 2022–2025 (2025 Mid-term Plan) aimed at enhancing corporate value over the medium to long term. In FY2022 and FY2023, we faced difficult external conditions, including sluggish automotive business performance caused by semiconductor shortages and a slowdown in the telecommunications carrier market, particularly in Europe and the United States. We also struggled to assess growth markets, which further compounded these difficulties. In contrast, FY2024 marked an important step toward achieving the targets of the 2025 Mid-term Plan. Revenue increased in both the Functional Products business—which includes data center-related products—and the Automotive Products business, while the Communications Solutions business restored its profitability. The data center market is particularly strong. Our data center heat radiation and cooling systems have become key drivers of business growth.
In FY2025, the final year of the 2025 Mid-term Plan, we aim to not only firmly achieve our numerical targets but also lay the strategic groundwork for the Furukawa Electric Group Vision 2030. We are rebuilding our business portfolio with a view to the future. We believe that these medium- to long-term actions will lead to further growth going forward.
We view our business portfolio not as something fixed but as a “dynamic” entity that we must continually review in response to changing external settings and social needs. Because optimal conditions change with circumstances, it is important to continually maintain an optimal state. To this end, we need to continuously generate new business opportunities while scaling down or withdrawing from product groups that have fulfilled their roles. To keep this cycle of renewal running in a healthy way, we have been working to build a management structure that balances the need for both “maximizing profits in existing businesses” and “building a foundation for creating new businesses” as stated under 2025 Medium-term Plan.
Under the 2025 Medium-term Plan, we set “strengthening the foundation for ESG management” as a priority measure. To this end, we have sought to address climate change, strengthen human capital, and reinforce governance by transitioning to a company with an Audit & Supervisory Committee. Leveraging intangible assets is also critically important because such assets serve as a key driving force in promoting ESG management and transforming our business portfolio.
I joined the Company as a process engineer at a time when optical fiber development was accelerating and demand was expanding. Within our open culture, I gained experience by identifying challenges independently and collaborating with colleagues to resolve them. Even before establishing its Purpose, the Group had long embraced a culture of trusting people and empowering them with responsibility. I believe that strengthening human resources requires developing people who can independently pursue their ambitions. Equally important are fostering open dialogue and creating an environment that encourages collaboration.
I believe we need to clearly demonstrate our ability to continue generating profits in excess of capital costs, so that we can consistently create value as a corporation. To this end, we introduced an indicator called Furukawa Value Added (FVA), which serves as a gauge for deciding whether to continue, scale down, or withdraw from a business. Our FVA has now shifted into positive territory overall, giving us confidence that the initiatives undertaken so far are beginning to show numerical results.
In addition to discussions about capital efficiency, it is naturally important to take the simpler perspective of whether we are properly generating profits. Our current operating margin is still only 3%–4%, but we are working to raise it toward double digits. In terms of operating income, we first aim to consistently exceed ¥50 billion annually, with ¥100 billion also in our sights thereafter. We will become a resilient corporate group that consistently generates profits above a certain level. We have set this vision as our goal for 2030 and, above all, are driving execution-focused management that will make that goal fully achievable.
Please also refer to the Integrated Report 2025 for details.
October 2025