Komeri's operating profit rises 12.6% on buying ahead of price rises, despite a Kumamoto earthquake that shut nine stores

Komeri Co., Ltd. (株式会社コメリ), the home-centre chain, said consolidated operating revenue rose 3.8% to ¥208.8 billion and operating profit rose 12.6% to ¥17.3 billion in the six months to 30 September 2026, according to an interim earnings statement filed 27 October. Ordinary profit rose 10.7% to ¥17.3 billion and net profit attributable to shareholders rose 9.2% to ¥11.3 billion, the company said. Komeri left its full-year forecast unchanged, still targeting revenue of ¥400.8 billion and operating profit of ¥24.0 billion for the year to March 2027.

Gross margin improved to 32.8% from 32.3% a year earlier, and the operating-profit margin rose to 8.3% from 7.6%, Komeri said. Tools, hardware and work supplies grew 7.6% to ¥36.1 billion, which the company linked to wider demand for paint thinner and adhesives amid supply concerns stemming from tensions in the Middle East, as well as steady sales of air-conditioner piping. Remodeling and exterior materials grew 5.4% to ¥29.6 billion, which Komeri attributed to customers buying building materials ahead of feared price rises. Daily goods, appliances, car and leisure items grew 4.7% to ¥40.2 billion, lifted in part by what the company called the "2027 air-conditioner problem" (2027年エアコン問題), which it said pulled forward demand for air conditioners, plus early stock-up buying of paper products, detergent and plastic wrap, particularly in early spring. Garden and agricultural supplies, the chain's largest category by sales, grew a slower 1.7% to ¥63.3 billion, held back by a high year-earlier comparison in farm cold-storage equipment even as petroleum-linked products such as shipping bags and film grew. The remaining categories, interior and household goods, and pet supplies and fuel, grew 2.1% and were essentially flat, respectively.

An earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture on 28 July 2026, registering the maximum intensity of 7 on Japan's seismic scale, damaged buildings and merchandise and forced nine Komeri stores to suspend operations, the company said; those stores have since reopened in stages. Komeri booked an extraordinary disaster loss of ¥388 million for the half, up from ¥50 million a year earlier. Komeri's affiliated non-profit, the Komeri Disaster Response Center (コメリ災害対策センター), had signed a disaster-supplies agreement with the Maritime Self-Defense Force's supply headquarters (海上自衛隊補給本部) in July, a week before the earthquake, and used it to supply troops deployed for the relief effort, the company said; during the half it also sent drinking water and heat-protection goods, such as fan-cooled work wear, to disaster-hit municipalities that asked for help.

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Behind the headline growth is a shift in how Komeri's existing stores are selling, not simply how many customers they draw. At existing stores, the number of customers fell 2.2% in the half while the average amount each one spent rose 5.0%, lifting same-store sales 2.7%, according to Komeri's supplementary materials; across all stores, customers fell 1.5% and spending per customer rose 5.3%. That is a pattern more consistent with existing shoppers buying bigger or pricier items than with the chain pulling in new ones.

It tracks the company's own account of two of its stronger categories. Demand for remodeling materials, it said, was lifted by customers buying ahead of feared price rises, and air-conditioner demand was pulled forward by the "2027 air-conditioner problem" it named. In our view, both are signs that some of this half's sales may have been borrowed from a future one rather than representing a lasting gain in demand. Revenue growth of 3.8% still ran nearly two percentage points ahead of the 2.1% rise in Japan's consumer prices in September, the half's final month, according to the Statistics Bureau of Japan, though a single month's reading is only a rough guide to a result covering six.

Komeri said it would pay an interim dividend of ¥29 per share, up from ¥28 a year earlier, and left its full-year dividend forecast unchanged at ¥58. The company opened five stores in the half, three of them conversions of existing Hard & Green-format stores to its larger Power format, against five closures, ending September with 1,234 stores.