Good evening. This is Gomi, Head of Investor Relations at Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Holdings. Thank you for joining our second quarter 2026 earnings presentation for analysts and investors. Today, we are joined by President Calin Dragan and Vice President and CFO, Bjorn Ulgenes. Also with us are Vice President of the Food Service Company and Chief Business Strategy Officer, Maki Kado, Executive Officer and President of the Retail Company, Alex Gonzalez, and Executive Officer, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer, Andrew Ferrett, and Executive Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer, Yuki Higashi. Following prepared remarks, we will be happy to take your questions. Simultaneous interpretation in Japanese and English is available for both today's presentation and the Q&A. Before we begin, please note that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements and should be considered together with cautionary statements contained in our presentation materials. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Calin Dragan. Calin-san, please. Good evening, everyone. This is Calin Dragan. Thank you for joining our earnings call. Before the presentation today, I would like to express our deepest sympathies to all those affected by the Kumamoto earthquake on July 28, 2026. The safety of our employees and their families remains our highest priority. We are currently confirming the safety of our employees and assessing the impact on our facilities and equipment, manufacturing and logistic operations, and product supply at the Kumamoto plant and other sites within our business area. At the Kumamoto plant, as safety and product quality are our top priorities, operations have been suspended while detailed inspections are carried out. Logistics and delivery operations in certain areas have also been affected due to damage to roads and other infrastructure. We will continue working closely with the local authorities and internal teams. We will provide further updates as soon as material information becomes available. Once again, we sincerely hope for the safety of all those affected by the disaster and for a swift recovery. Now, I would like to share our first half financial results. These are the highlights of today's presentation. Please look at slide three. In the first half, we continued our trend of profit growth and achieving strong results. Business income for the first half grew by JPY 6.6 billion versus the previous year. Although we are still ahead of the peak demand season, we have already achieved over 60% of our full year profit growth target, representing good progress. Furthermore, for the first time in eight years, since 2018, we have returned to profit in our first half. We view this as a significant achievement that demonstrates steady improvement across our entire business. Even while the whole industry faces raising costs, we are steadily improving our profitability. In the first half, revenue grew by 1.3% versus previous year, while gross profit grew by 3.4%, exceeding revenue growth and contributing to an increase in business income. Furthermore, during the first half, key initiatives that will drive future profit growth, such as expanding sales space in preparations for the peak demand season, implementing price revisions, and accelerated rollout of Monster Energy in vending machines, made significant progress. Transformation efforts to build growth foundation also proceeded smoothly. In addition, building on the strong earnings performance, we have announced a JPY 40 billion share buyback program to be carried out over one year starting in November as part of our shareholders' return program under Vision 2030. We have increased the scale of the buyback by JPY 10 billion compared to the previous program, thereby accelerating our shareholder returns. We believe we are successfully creating a positive cycle of steadily improving our earnings performance and enhancing shareholder returns. Looking ahead into the second half, we will achieve our full year business income target of JPY 35 billion by maximizing commercial activities during the peak demand period, further advancing our key initiatives, and addressing cost increases impacted by the situation in the Middle East. We will also make significant progress towards achieving our ambitious mid to long-term targets. Our CFO, Bjorn Ulgenes, will provide a detailed explanation of our financial results. Thank you, Calin, good evening, everyone. This is Bjorn. Please turn to slide five for the first half profit and loss. The first half saw an increase in both revenue and profits compared with the previous year, our business performance performed smoothly. Sales volume grew at a rate faster than the market, despite the impact of price revisions and other factors. Revenue grew by 1.3% year-over-year, driven by volume growth and an improvement in wholesale revenue per case, despite the impact of a less favorable channel mix. Gross profit increased by 3.4% year-over-year, outpacing the revenue growth rate. In addition to top-line growth driven by price revisions, this was due in part to our ability to control commodity and material costs, including joint procurement within the Coca-Cola system and hedging strategies in an environment of rising costs caused by external factors. As a result of such initiatives, business income grew significantly at JPY 6.6 billion year-over-year, which was more than 5 times the previous year's figure. I will explain the factors contributing to this increase in profit later. Operating income increased significantly by JPY 10.3 billion year-over-year, driven by business income increases and cycling of the JPY 88.4 billion impairment loss recorded in the vending business during the second quarter of the previous year. Net income improved by JPY 70.77 billion year-over-year, reaching JPY 4.8 billion. This was primarily driven by an increase in operating income and marks a return to first-half profitability for the first time in eight years since 2018. Slide six shows our financial results by segment. In the first half, vending achieved profit driven by the benefits of transformation initiatives, while OTC and Food Service achieved revenue and profit growth. Let's look at the vending business. Sales volume declined due to price revisions and unfavorable weather in June. Although we continue to see improvements in wholesale revenue per case, revenue decreased. On the other hand, segment profit was JPY 5.3 billion, an improvement of JPY 6.7 billion from the previous year. While this figure includes the positive impact of lower depreciation expenses resulting from the impairment loss in the vending business recorded in the previous year, the transformation benefits, such as improved profitability and enhanced route productivity, are steadily becoming evident. As a result, we were able to achieve organic profit growth even in a challenging business environment. In the OTC business, revenue increased by 2.6% year-over-year, outpacing volume growth driven by both volume growth and price revision benefits. In particular, online drugstores and discounters channel led to growth in both volume and revenue. Segment profit grew 8.3% year-over-year through the relentless focus on profitability-driven initiatives. In food service business, we achieved strong double-digit growth year-over-year in sales volume, revenue, and segment profit, driven by business expansion with existing customers and the success of our efforts to secure new customers. Initiatives aimed at driving mid- to long-term profit growth is progressing smoothly, and we will continue this positive trend going forward. Please turn to slide seven for the factors behind the change in business income. Business income grew strongly, increasing by JPY 6.6 billion compared to the previous year. Starting from the left, we can see the impact of volume, price, and mix. Together, these factors reflect changes in marginal profit from our commercial activities and contributed a positive JPY 3.8 billion year-over-year. The main factors were a positive impact of JPY 1.4 billion from volume, including channel mix, and a positive JPY 8 billion impact from pricing, partially offset by a negative JPY 5.6 billion impact from other factors. Although adverse channel mix due to the change in consumer trends remained a headwind, volume growth and improved wholesale revenue per case resulting from price revisions are steadily contributing to profit growth. Transformation benefits totaled JPY 3 billion, in line with our plan. Savings were particularly significant in commercial, where benefits from the transformation of the vending business continued to materialize steadily. In supply chain and back office, we are building a foundation that contributes to mid- to long-term growth while also generating cost savings. Marketing expenses increased by JPY 1.4 billion year-over-year. This was due to our marketing investments made with return on investments in mind, while taking market conditions into account, while strengthening market activities in the second quarter in preparation for the peak demand season. Manufacturing costs decreased by JPY 0.7 billion versus the previous year. As production volume increased alongside higher sales volume, manufacturing efficiency improved. In addition, we continue to implement cost-saving initiatives on the production sites. Although other costs increased due to higher IT-related investments and expenses aimed at future profit growth, as well as higher personnel and outsourcing costs, the increase was limited to JPY 0.1 billion, offset by a reduction in depreciation expenses this year, resulting from the impairment loss on the vending business recorded in the previous year. Commodity and utility costs decreased by JPY 0.7 billion, thanks to successful hedging strategies and our procurement function leveraging the Coca-Cola system global network, one of our company's key strengths. Commodities and foreign exchange were flat year-over-year, while utility costs achieved a decrease of JPY 0.6 billion. From the next slide, Alex will give an overview of our commercial activities. Alex, please. Good evening, everyone. This is Alex. Slide eight shows sales volume by channel and by category. Sales volume for the first half grew 2% year-over-year, exceeding both our plan and the overall market, despite the impact of unfavorable weather in June. This growth was driven by commercial activities that fully leverage events such as the FIFA World Cup, as well as contributions from our core strategies. Additionally, wholesale revenue per case continue its upward trend in the second quarter because of a series of price revisions resulting in year-over-year growth across nearly all channels for the first half. Vending saw contributions from campaigns and other initiatives through the Coke ON app. Sales declined by 1% year-over-year due to adverse weather conditions in June. In supermarkets, a decline in sales volume for water and sports due to price revisions impacted overall sales. At drugstores and discounters, efforts to secure shelf space through campaigns such as those tied to the World Cup proved successful, resulting in a 4% year-over-year growth in sales volume. At CVS, we achieved a significant improvement in wholesale revenue per case and a steady improvement in profitability by implementing price revisions and carefully controlling rebates and promotional activities, particularly for coffee, although sales volume declined. In online, while wholesale revenue per case was impacted by an increase in large PET water, volume achieved strong growth of 8%. In Food Service, volume grew strongly by 11%, driven by business expansion with existing customers and efforts to secure new accounts, as well as initiatives to strengthen core categories. By category, sparkling grew by 8% in volume, driven by campaigns and in-store activities that made full use of the FIFA World Cup, a key asset of Coca-Cola. In tea, strong growth in Yakan no Mugicha and Kōcha Kaden helped to offset the decline in green tea volume following price revisions, resulting in a 3% growth for the category as a whole. For sports, water, and coffee, adverse weather in June and price revisions impacted, leading to a decline in volume. Slide nine shows the status of market share and OTC retail prices. Against the backdrop of continued intense competition We maintained balanced growth of both value share and volume share during the first half through commercial activities focused on profitability. Our total channel value share increased by 0.9 percentage points. While we have been implementing price revisions, our volume outperformed the market, and the year-over-year increase in volume share contributed to the rise in value share. In vending, as in the first quarter, growth in volume share drove an increase in value share. We achieved sustained growth in value share through initiatives such as optimizing our product lineups based on profitability, using an AI-powered assortment system, and conducting promotions via Coke ON. In OTC channel, although the price revisions for green tea products implemented in March had an impact on market share, we enhanced our competitiveness through commercial activities based on data insights, resulting in both volume and value share remaining roughly at the previous year's level. Our product's OTC retail prices continue to maintain a premium over the industry average. As a result of a series of price revisions, retail prices for both small and large PET products have remained above last year's level, despite the impact of factors such as channel mix. A more detailed overview of our green tea products, of which we implemented price revisions in March, on the next slide. Slide 10 covers the topics for the first half. Our price revision initiatives are progressing smoothly, and we're steadily improving profitability. First, regarding the green tea price revisions in March, we have carefully implemented increases in shipment prices aligned with revisions to the manufacturer's suggested retail price on a business unit basis. As a result, the wholesale revenue per case of Ayataka achieved a significant improvement of over JPY 150 between March and June cumulative period. We are generating results as planned. We're also working to optimize rebates and promotional expenses, focusing on improving profitability from every angle. Green tea is one of the most competitive categories. While price revisions have had an impact on sales volume, the launch of several new products under the Ayataka brand and the strengthened sales efforts for products such as Yakan no Mugicha have enabled the tea category to achieve positive sales growth. Furthermore, the upward trend in retail prices for green tea is accelerating. The graph in the lower right corner of the slide shows the trend in the per-bottle retail price of our green tea at supermarkets, drugstores, and discounters. As you can see, retail prices for both small and large PET have been rising since the price revisions last October, and following the price revisions in March, the upward trend has accelerated. In addition, as previously announced in May, we will implement price revisions for our major products in September. We have already begun negotiations with customers and are proceeding with swift and thorough preparations, including the formulation of a market execution plan that leverages the lessons we have learned to maximize the impact of these price revisions. In addition, during the first half, key initiatives in each area that will drive future profit growth progressed smoothly. Please refer to slide 11. In commercial, we maximize our market execution to capture summer demand and strengthen the growth foundation for the future. This year, we made the most of the World Cup by launching limited edition packages, rolling out the Coca-Cola FIFA World Cup 26 campaign, and thoroughly optimizing store displays to support these initiatives, resulting in significant volume growth for Coca-Cola. In addition to sparkling, we focus our marketing efforts on promoting drinking occasions within the tea beverage, where demand increases during the summer, which led to increased sales volume and expanded sales space ahead of the peak demand season. In food services, we're generating results that are expected to contribute to profits over the mid to long term, such as securing new customers and expanding business with existing customers through initiatives such as tailored sales proposals for growing business. In addition, the rollout of Monster Energy through vending channels, which we've discussed at our previous earnings briefings, has progressed smoothly. To ensure we're fully prepared for the peak demand season, we focused on an early rollout to vending machines and began sales in June. Initial sales have been trending well, and as a high price point product, we expect it to contribute to profits through increased volume and mix. As part of our transformation initiatives to strengthen our foundation in the supply chain area, we plan to launch three integrated distribution centers in the Kanto region by the end of the year and have been steadily preparing for the launch. We also work with the commercial teams and our customers to optimize cost to serve by leveraging our direct sales model. Furthermore, to improve the accuracy and efficiency of our S&OP, aim at a stable, high quality and low-cost supply. We have focused on ensuring the stable operation of the new system introduced at the end of last year. In back office and IT, we steadily advance the development of our foundation for system and data integration. Within [inaudible] tower, the various system implementations we will undertake in the future to further promote digital transformation. Now, starting with the next slide, Maki will explain our marketing activities. Maki, please go ahead. Good evening. This is Kado. Slide 13 provides a review of our marketing activities for the first half. To strengthen core categories, Coca-Cola launched the second installment of its FIFA World Cup limited edition packaging in April, featuring designs inspired by the uniforms and flags of popular participating nations in the FIFA World Cup, with the aim of encouraging repeat purchases among consumers. In addition, Fanta underwent a renewal of its core flavors in April. By leveraging AI technology and making repeated product improvements based on insights gained from analyzing consumer evaluation data, the brand has achieved a new level of taste distinct from previous Fanta products. Sales were boosted through campaigns and other initiatives tied to the renewal. Thanks to these initiatives, volume in sparkling category, including Coca-Cola and Fanta, increased by 8% compared to the previous year. As a new product, we have launched Aquarius The Zero from the Aquarius brand. By combining the distinctive taste of Aquarius with zero sugar and zero calories, the product has achieved repeat purchase rates on par with our standard products, and we will continue to try to maximize sales during the summer, which is the peak season. Under the Ayataka brand, we have launched three new products and introduced product renewal. We launched Ayataka Rich Hojicha, a food product with functional claims designed to meet health needs, as well as Ayataka Mineral Green Tea and Ayataka Cafe Gently Sweet Matcha Green Tea. By expanding our product lineup to address diversifying consumer needs, we aim to strengthen the brand. In terms of experiential marketing, in addition to launching the second phase of the Coca-Cola FIFA World Cup 26 promotion, we are collaborating with Coca-Cola Japan to implement initiatives aimed at enhancing the experiential value sought in today's dining out scene, such as launching the Coca-Cola Foodmarks certification program for restaurants that offer delicious meals and the ultimate Coca-Cola experience. Slide 14 highlights our marketing activities for the third quarter. We will continue to focus even more on our core categories through campaigns and new products. To strengthen our core categories, we launched the Coca-Cola Summer Campaign in July to capture summer demand. We are running a digital summer slot promotion where users can win limited edition Coca-Cola summer merchandise, with the aim of attracting younger customers. Starting in September, we plan to launch a Coca-Cola Zero campaign featuring BTS' V for encouraging consumers to try the Coca-Cola Zero series. As a new product, we will launch Georgia Café Water, a coffee taste drink without coffee beans, in September. Designed to address future coffee supply risks caused by climate change, this product leverages Coca-Cola's proprietary technology to minimize bitterness and astringency, making it easy to drink in large gulps while still offering the aroma and flavor characteristics of coffee, which will be a new value proposition. In addition, I LOHAS Tennensui began selling 400ml labelless PET bottles from July 13th. This is a smaller version of the labelless bottle, which is currently available primarily through online channels, and it retains the features that have earned praise, such as no need to peel off the label and easy to recycle. With additional benefits like being easy for women and children to grip and drink from, and easy to carry even in small bags, the product aims to attract new consumers and create new drinking occasions that cater to diverse lifestyles. As part of experiential marketing efforts, we will launch a new Coca-Cola Foodmarks initiative in Shibuya starting in August as a way to deliver experiential value to the food service market. In 2026, we will work to provide even greater experiential value to the food service market by evolving and strengthening this program. Slide 16 outlines our outlook. We aim to further enhance shareholder value by achieving our full year business income target of JPY 35 billion and expanding shareholder returns. In the second half, to achieve our full year business income target, we will maintain the steady momentum seen in the first half while striving to expand business income during the peak demand season through continued growth and improved profitability. Regarding the top line, we will make maximum use of the growth foundation we have built to date to capture summer beverage demand. Although the first half of July was affected by unfavorable weather, sales have gradually rebounded, supported by strings of hot days starting in the middle of the month. While we had anticipated a decline in volume during efforts to improve profitability through price revisions, the start of the peak demand season has been steady. We will also focus on the steady implementation of price revisions for our major products in September. This price revision covers 165 major items, which account for approximately 50% of our total sales volume, with manufacturers' suggested retail price increasing by between 3.2% and 18.7%. This marks the 10th price revision since 2022. We will leverage the data and insights we have accumulated to date to ensure the success of this price revision and work toward further improving profitability. We are also confident that the early launch of Monster Energy in the first half will contribute to profits during the peak demand period, and we will continue to strengthen sales efforts. Regarding the short-term outlook for the impact from the situation in the Middle East, there is no change from what we have previously shared. With the contribution of our hedging strategy, the impact on our full-year earnings forecast within this year is expected to be limited to a cost increase of approximately JPY 2 billion-JPY 4 billion. Through the price revisions and the rollout of Monster Energy that we have discussed, as well as the implementation of additional cost savings measures, we aim to offset this impact and achieve full-year business income of JPY 35 billion. In addition, we are accelerating our shareholder returns. Since November 2024, we have been conducting share buybacks totaling JPY 30 billion for two consecutive years, and the 2026 buyback is expected to be completed as scheduled this October. Furthermore, based on the shareholder return targets set forth in Vision 2030, we have decided to carry out a new share buyback program totaling JPY 40 billion over one year, starting this November. In light of our strong business performance, we have increased the buyback amount by JPY 10 billion compared to the previous program. We remain committed to our ambitious shareholder return targets, including the cumulative share buyback of JPY 150 billion through 2030 and a dividend per share of JPY 140-JPY 150 in 2030, and we will continue to actively seek opportunities to further enhance shareholder value. Finally, summary of today. Please turn to slide 17. In the first half, we achieved a significant increase in business income, continuing the strong performance trend from the first quarter. Although we were impacted by unforeseen business conditions such as unfavorable weather in June, we view it as a strong achievement that in the first year of Vision 2030, we achieved more than 60% of our annual profit growth target before the peak demand season, while continuing to make investments towards sustainable growth as planned. As we explained at the beginning of today's presentation, this marks the first time in eight years that we have posted a net profit for the first half. Given that we generate majority of our profits in the third quarter, we view this as a very encouraging result. The solid growth foundation we have built to date, along with our ability to execute strategies aimed at improving profitability, have served as the driving forces behind our strong business performance and earnings growth, even in this environment, reinforcing our conviction that our strategic direction is the right one. The key initiatives we have steadily advanced through the first half are all poised to drive future profit growth, and in the second half, we will ensure we fully reap the benefits of these efforts. Furthermore, while the share buyback announced this time amounts to JPY 40 billion, which is an increase of JPY 10 billion from the previous program, I would like to reiterate that accelerating the pace of shareholder returns reflects our confidence in our performance to date and our future profit growth. As we enter the second half, our top-line revenue is progressing as planned, and we have gotten off to a good start during the peak demand season. We remain firmly committed to improving our business performance, and we will achieve this year's business income target of JPY 35 billion. As a first year of Vision 2030, we will make significant strides toward achieving our ambitious mid to long-term targets. Throughout the year, we will deliver substantial results in both business performance and shareholder returns, thereby embodying the further enhancement of shareholder value outlined in Vision 2030. That concludes today's presentation. Thank you for your attention. Now, we will move on to the Q&A session. Gomi-san, please. Kado-san, thank you. This Q&A session is intended for analysts and investors. Members of the media are kindly asked to refrain from asking questions at this time, as a separate session will be held later today. Due to interpretation, please ask only one question at a time. We will now begin the Q&A session. Operator, please proceed. If you would like to raise a question, please press hash seven. If you press hash seven again, it will cancel your request, so please be careful. During the Q&A session, you can press hash seven to raise a request for a question at any time. Please press hash seven for question request. We have received requests for questions, and we would like to begin the Q&A session. We will now call the name of the person who will be asking the question. Please tell us your company name and your name before asking the question. We will now unmute the first person. From UBS Securities, this is Ihara-san. Please go ahead. Thank you very much for the presentation. I am Ihara from UBS Securities. Hello. Hello, Ihara-san. Hello. I have two questions. My first question is, you are buying back your shares, not JPY 30 billion, but you have announced JPY 40 billion. We would like to once again hear about the background of it being JPY 40 billion. I know that you have a strong commitment here, but in five years it's going to be JPY 150 billion, and that has not changed. Looking at your cash generation capability for the first half, it seems that it is the same. It's not growing. This JPY 40 billion, why did you announce this number with an increase? In five years, you're saying that it's JPY 150 billion. Is there a plan to make this number even larger for 2030? I would like to know about that as well. That's my first question. Ihara-san, thank you very much. This is regarding the buyback of shares. Bjorn-san would like to answer this question. Thank you, Ihara-san. Yes, correct. We have issued an acceleration of our share buybacks of JPY 40 billion for this tranche while retaining the JPY 150 billion target in our Vision 2030. The background is very straightforward. You heard us say multiple times in the prepared remarks, our first half of 2026, our first six months, therefore, of the Vision 2030 is very strong. We have delivered organic growth, we have delivered top-line growth, and you see profit delivery in all our business units, which we believe is a strong statement towards our commitment in delivering our Vision 2030 objectives. Yes, we are accelerating now on the backbone of that good performance, and we remain fully committed based on our free cash flow deliverables to continue buying back stock. There's no plan at the present moment to adjust the JPY 150 billion, we are seeing this as an acceleration based on the good results for this year. Thank you. I see. Thank you very much. As now, you don't have a plan to change JPY 150 billion, is there a possibility to change that JPY 150 billion if the path in the future might be different? Should I understand in that way? As I said, we have made no determination of changing the cumulative target for now. Of course, everything will be evaluated as the performance continues to deliver. Mm-hmm. I see. Thank you very much. Moving on to my second question. Once again, I want to hear about next year. In your midterm plan, you have JPY 45 billion-JPY 50 billion for the business income. Is there no change in that? If that is the case, that means that you need to increase the profitability by JPY 10 billion-JPY 15 billion. In 2027, what is your understanding on cost as well? How are you going to jump up to those numbers? What is the background for you to be confident to achieve the numbers? Thank you, Ihara-san, for your question. You want to ask about the BI for the next turn. Again, we would like to ask Bjorn-san to answer. Thank you, Ihara-san. First and foremost, we are in 2026. Our first protocol is to deliver this year. As you heard several statements of commitment in the prepared remarks. For 2027, yes, you rightly say we need to deliver JPY 45 billion, JPY 50 billion, and we remain very committed to deliver that. This is based on, again, having a very sound strategy in our Vision 2030 plans. We have clear deliverables for our three business units. We have clear cost-saving targets. We will also look at inflation, as you all see coming into Japan from external sources, as one of the reasons to continue also evaluating price increases and further cost optimizations. Yes, there will always be changes in the operating environment as we execute our strategy plan, but we believe strong strategies, clear focus, and the ability to action items like pricing and cost savings will make it very deliverable also for 2027. Mm-hmm. I see. I know that might be difficult to make a comment right now, but what is your assumption on the cost next year? Any assumptions? I'm not going to comment to. Go ahead. Sorry, was somebody speaking? Yeah. No. We will come back in the normal process, Ihara-san, with our 2027 targets in our February disclosure. Of course, as I said earlier, we remain very committed to delivering it, and cost increases will happen as they do in the normal course of running a business. That's why it's very important that we stay committed to our pricing initiatives that you also saw commented on in the prepared remarks. We will come back with more details on that in February. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Okay, clear. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your question, Ihara-san. Operator, please move to the next question. I will unmute the next person. Next person is Morita-san from Nomura Securities. Please go ahead. [Non-English content] One point I would like to look at the inventory. I believe that your inventory asset has increased by about 25%. Can you tell us about it? Is it because of the impact coming from the bad weather in June? Thank you. Your question is about the inventory level. It seems that it's rising up. Maybe Bjorn-san, can you answer to this question? Thank you. First and foremost, Morita-san, stepping back a little bit and looking at the last three, four years, you have seen a tremendous evolution in what we call S&OP, sales and operational planning, where we have captured all opportunities for sales in the market coming through the different heat periods, et cetera. As normal course of business, we will always build inventory a little bit in Q1, but mostly in Q2, again, anticipating our Q3 main peak season. That's all within the normal course of business. We are updating our sales and operational planning, in other words, matching demand and supply, therefore through inventory adjustments on a daily and weekly business. We are launching new products continuously to meet demand. On top of that, we are also, as you heard in the prepared remarks and in prior announcements, introducing the IDCs, the integrated distribution centers, which also impacts inventory. All of that comes together in quarterly, year-on-year ups and downs, but this is all in the course of normal business. Some bad weather will, of course, impact inventory, but overall, the sales and operational planning is working very well. Thank you very much. The second question is about the OTC's situation. From April to June, in between these three months, the market share in the OTC has been declined pretty big, I guess. What's the background to this sharp drop, and also are you looking more onto the strategy of getting the margin than the share? Is that the kind of shift in your strategy? I would like to understand any shift in your strategy in the OTC or if there's any plan to change your strategy in OTC. Thank you, Makoto-san. Your question is about the trend in the OTC share. Alex, would you like to pick this question, please? Morita-san, this is Alex. Just to probably give a little bit of color on the share in OTC, particularly in the second quarter. Probably what you are reading is, let me unpack a few dynamics taking place. On the one hand, particularly in the month of June, we saw a significant decline in enhanced hydration category, which typically where we have a high share. What you are seeing here is a reflection of the negative impact that the decline on this category, higher category because of external factors, it is impacting the overall share. That is probably one of the most significant impacts that is, again, out of our control. What I can also share is there is no fundamental change on our stance of expanding our value share in the market and outpacing the market. We have been very disciplined against this. We are implementing a very disciplined revenue growth management strategy with the focus of expanding a profitable and sustainable value share. What you are seeing as well on the back of this, we are reflecting the price increases, particularly in green tea. Evidently, there is a natural impact as not all industry players follow that in the short term, you will see an impact on particularly green tea share. Nonetheless, we have been able to manage our portfolio in a proactive way with the rest of the non-sweetened tea portfolio, such as Yakan no Mugicha, Sokenbicha, and helping offset as well as some of the exclusive portfolio in the OTC channel. Back to the genesis of your question, there is no change in our stance of expanding market share. We want to make sure that our share expansion is sustainable. We are activating in a very proactive way our full revenue growth margin expansion algorithm. Thank you. [Non-English content]. Thank you very much. Thank you, Morita-san, for your question. Operator, please put through the next question. I will unmute the next speaker. Next, we have Furuta-san from SMBC. Please go ahead with your question. Thank you. This is Furuta from SMBC. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Furuta-san. I have one question about price increase. You announced the September wave already, but the timing is different maker by maker. What are the pricing benefit you can expect? The industry's price increase timings are varied. Do you think that you can really realize the expected benefit from September price increase? Alex-san, please take this question. Furuta-san, Alex here. We're very confident on our ability to implement a very disciplined price increases. I think we have stayed committed, and we have always walked the talk around our stance of shaping healthier industry economics. We are progressing very smoothly against this price increase in September. We're very confident in our ability to work with our customers and implement in due course. Thank you very much. I think that this benefit from the September price increase will totally offset the expected cost increase in the next year. You said that about JPY 3 billion, JPY 4 billion cost impact. You mentioned that 2027 cost increase expected and whether this September price increase can offset that impact. Bjorn-san, please take this question. As we said, Furuta-san, in the prepared remarks, we are very committed to taking price in the market. We also said, as you heard, pricing is one of the options we have to mitigate inflation and over time also grow our business sustainably. In our toolbox, so to speak, pricing is one, transformations, cost savings is another one, capital management is a third one. We are, as management, using the full toolbox to manage this implication. Pricing is top of mind, but there are also other actions we are taking as a company to, again, manage the deliverables. Thank you. Thank you very much. That is all from me. Thank you, Furuta-san, for your question. Now operator, please put through the next question. I will unmute the next person with a question. Miyake-san from Morgan Stanley MUFG, please go ahead. Thank you. Miyake speaking. I have two questions. I'm sorry, at the beginning I was late to join the call, so if I ask a question that you already explained, I'm sorry. For the first-half results, the business income to the initial plan, what was the progress compared to the initial plan in terms of your first-half business income? Miyake-san, thank you for your question. The first-half business impact evaluation, Bjorn will answer this question. Thank you, Miyake-san. Our first-half business income of JPY 6.6 billion is in line with our plan. Volume was probably a little bit ahead of plan, overall, we have delivered according to plan by the three business units, which of course we are very pleased with. Thank you. Thank you. Then the volume was outperforming, the mix was not so good as expected. What was the reason why the volume was a bit offset? The volume was good, the business income was the same as the plan, the background of this please, Bjorn-san could please take this question. This comes in, Miyake-san, on predominantly two different angles, right? One is the channel mix. As you saw, our OTC business and our vending retail business have different growth patterns, also our food service have a third growth pattern. You will have channel mix again. We are planning for that, and that's part of our execution plan. You also saw some, as we said in the prepared remarks, we had some adverse weather hitting Japan in June. You will have certain category mixes also inside there, on top of the channel mix. It's a combination of channel and category. Thank you. Thank you. The second question for the second half, I would like to ask a question. For the Middle East crisis, there will be a JPY 2 billion-JPY 4 billion cost increase. The view for the increase, it remains the same, and it's been quite a long time. What will be the biggest portion of the cost increase? The conflict is continuing, and also crude oil impact is continuing. What is the breakdown of the impact that you see there for potential cost increase? I'm sorry to ask this, but two days ago there was a Kumamoto earthquake, and you have a manufacturing site in Kumamoto Prefecture, and I'd like to ask the situation of the Kumamoto earthquake. [Non-English content]. Thank you very much for your question. For the first question, the impact of the Middle East crisis for JPY 2 billion-JPY 4 billion breakdown, Bjorn will take this question. Bjorn again, Miyake-san. Yes, as we said in our prepared remarks, we're maintaining the range of impact of JPY 2 billion-JPY 4 billion from the Middle East. For competitive reasons, we cannot break that down into the individual cost buckets. You can safely assume a lot of that has relations to the energy fluctuations you see globally, and also especially the yen-dollar rate that we observe in Japan specifically. As we said, overall, we're managing this towards our targets, and we're using a very sound hedging policy to, again, mitigate the impacts of this imported inflation. Thank you. For the second question, earthquake impact for the Kumamoto, Kado will take this question. Thank you for your question. We also experienced the earthquake in Kumamoto 10 years ago, and after that, we have also overcame a lot of difficulties, and we have a lot of experience overcoming those difficulties. Of course, it depends on the infrastructure recovery status. Looking at the overall status to the impact to our performance, we are able to manage, or it's manageable at the minimum levels. That's what we think. Thank you. I'm really happy to hear that. Thank you very much, Miyake-san. Thank you very much. Operator, please move on to the next question. We will move on to the next question. The next question is from Saji-san, Mizuho Securities. Go ahead. Thank you. One question from me. For the beverages, we are wondering how much you can continuously increase the price, because last year, the 500 PET, some of the prices are over JPY 200. We are at that level already. Thinking about the disposable income versus that, how much can you continuously increase your price? Looking at the market as a whole, what is your understanding of how much further you can increase the price? Do you have any benchmark you are comparing with? That would be my question. Well, thank you for your question. How much price revisions we will be able to continue. I would like to ask Alex-san to pick up this question. Alex here. Look, the way, just repeating myself, we look at pricing as one of the levers to drive our profit growth expansion. I think we obviously considering multiple factors, definitely consumer sentiment, consumer disposable incomes, and a number of things. Now, I think in the end, it's how are we able to think of pricing in the context of a number of variables depending on the pack, the price, the channel. We're taking a very flexible view, taking into consideration a set of customers that probably are showing more defensive behaviors. For that, we're addressing our portfolio offerings, especially on affordable packs, smaller disposable, absolute disposable price points, such as a launch of 1.25 liters, which is showing remarkably less price elasticity than the large PET 2 liters. We're adapting very flexibly to understand depending on the occasion, depending on the channel, the willingness of consumers to pay. Based on that, we are advancing our understanding on consumer realities and also taking a very balanced view around growing volumes, transactions, revenues, all in the end profit for our system. Thank you very much. A follow-up question. In September, you're going to have another price revision. The price elasticity, what is the difference versus the last price revision? Additional question. Thank you. The price elasticity. Alex-san, would you like to answer? Price elasticity is an ever-evolving fluidity depending on. It's not a one-off, but our accumulated learnings allow us to better understand at a more granular level. There's not a simple answer. There's clearly, obviously some, as I said, defensive behavior, that obviously people are less elastic, but there are also prices that we just launched Monster in vending price point above JPY 200 and people are willing to pay. I think in the end, it's about how we're optimizing the mix of price point, pack sizes, and categories so that we are driving overall profitable growth faster than transactions growth. Thank you very much. Thank you for your question, Saji-san. It is past our time, but we would like to still take a couple of questions because there are requests. We would like to continue. Operator, please move on to the next question. I will unmute the next person. Next is Sumoge-san from BofA. Hi, this is Sumoge speaking. Sumoge-san, sorry, your voice is really low. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I have two questions. One is, at the beginning of QA, you mentioned about that JPY 40 billion-JPY 50 billion target. You said that you committed to hit it and you are very confident. But I believe that you are also considering about a drastic cost reduction factored in. Every year, you have been having the transformation benefit of like six periods. Is that the kind of cost reduction that you are factoring in? Or is there any additional cost reduction activities that you are planning on? I would like to understand, is there any drastic cost reduction plan for next year? Thank you for your questions. Your question is about is there any drastic plan for the cost reduction? Maybe Bjorn can answer this question, please. Thank you, Sumoge-san. Yes, as I said earlier in the Q&A, we remain very committed to our 2027 profit target. Also, remind yourself of what I said earlier regarding the toolbox. We have a very sound toolbox that we as management execute to deliver our targets. Pricing is one of them, of course, a major part of how we cover inflation, but we also have a very sound and strategic transformation cost savings program. We can scale up and down these different levers or opportunities as we go through the year. It's too early to talk about 2027 initiatives now, as I also said earlier, we will come back to that in February. Again, remind yourself that we have that toolbox that we're executing very diligently and agile, I guess is the best English term for it. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have another question. The second question is about the Monster Energy. You have been selling this product since June. What is the contribution to the total sales of the vending machine business? Because we couldn't really see what is the magnitude of the impact or the benefit. For example, for second quarter, you have marked - 2%. I was just thinking, if you don't have a bad weather, will this be a positive range, or is there any part of the Monster Energy contributing to offset those kind of negative impact? Thank you, Sumoge-san. With regard to the Monster Energy, I would like to ask Alex to answer your question. Alex here. We do not disclose specific figures related to Monster. What I can share is that, as you read in the prepared remarks, we deployed Monster well ahead of our initial plan into our large vending network. We do expect Monster to contribute to organic growth in the vending channel. Thank you very much. In that case, by looking at it from the vending volume, is going to pick up into recovery trend because of the introduction of the Monster Energy in the future? Thank you, Sumoge-san, for your question. Will Monster Energy change any trend and trajectory in the vending business? Alex, would you like to answer this? As probably I said, we do expect Monster to contribute to organic growth through the Monster vending, which is comparable vending store sales to grow, accretive in revenue and in transactions. Thank you. Thank you for your question. I am afraid that we are getting to the closing hours, but I would like to pick up one last question. Operator, please go ahead. I unmute the next speaker. Next, we have Watanabe-san from Citigroup Securities on the line. Please go ahead with the question. This is Watanabe from Citigroup Securities. Thank you for taking my question, just one about EBITDA. Q2 EBITDA, 5%-6%, which seems like the decline in the profit. Sales volume flattish and DME increased. What are the factors behind the EBITDA for Q2? Bjorn-san, please take this question. Thank you, Watanabe-san. Overall, as you saw in our prepared remarks, our business incomes, our recurring profit is up 6.6%, which then includes the effects of the impairment and therefore the depreciation from last year. When it comes to the EBITDA, there's a few moving parts in Q2, but the biggest one, which I consider more of a timing issue, is the investments into markets, into DME, as we call it, for Q2. Again, to ensure we deliver sound profit in our main peak season for Q3. I would say that's the biggest impact for it. Thank you. Thank you very much. We are running over time, that was the last question. With that, we would like to conclude the Q&A session. The contents of the presentation will be posted in our official website. If you have feedback or further questions, please contact IR team. Thank you very much for your participation.