Asahi published a first quarter and a half year on the same morning, four and a half months after the first of them was due, and at the prior year exchange rates both of them shrank

Two sets of accounts landed within the same minute on Friday morning in Tokyo. One of them was due in May.

Asahi Group Holdings filed its results for January to March 2026 and its results for the six months to June at 11.30 a.m. Japan time. Both documents open with the same sentence, and it is an apology: the company says it is sorry for the great inconvenience caused to shareholders and others concerned by the postponement of results announcements that accompanied the cyberattack of 29 September 2025. Neither document says anything else about the attack. That single sentence is the whole of the explanation for why a first quarter arrived in the middle of August.

The quarter nobody saw until Friday

Revenue for the first quarter was ¥647,125m, up 2.6 percent. Core operating profit, which Asahi defines for itself as revenue less cost of sales and selling, general and administrative expenses, was ¥35,083m, down 6.9 percent. Operating profit was ¥32,895m and profit attributable to owners of the parent was ¥21,428m, both slightly below the same quarter of 2025.

Take the currency out and the quarter reads the other way. On the company's constant currency basis, which restates the 2026 foreign currency amounts at the prior year rates, revenue fell 4.4 percent and core operating profit fell 14.3 percent.

Japan and East Asia is the segment where the system failure landed, and it is the one segment where the two measures agree. Revenue there was ¥279,681m, down 9.3 percent on both bases, and core operating profit was ¥21,258m, down 22.1 percent on both. The company attributes the fall to the effect of the system failure and to higher raw material costs, alongside price revisions that pushed the other way. Segment operating profit was ¥15,739m, down 34.8 percent.

Fifty six percent, or 1.5 percent, or minus 8.5

Revenue for the six months was ¥1,463,963m, up 7.7 percent. Operating profit was ¥144,143m, up 56.2 percent. Profit attributable to owners was ¥99,148m, up 68.8 percent.

Now the other three numbers in the same document. Core operating profit rose 1.5 percent, to ¥111,354m. Adjusted profit attributable to owners, which the company defines as that profit less temporary special factors such as portfolio restructuring and impairment, rose 8.2 percent to ¥73,001m. At the prior year exchange rates, revenue fell 0.6 percent and core operating profit fell 8.5 percent.

The distance between 1.5 percent and 56.2 percent sits mostly in one line. Other operating income was ¥44,072m in the half against ¥2,143m a year earlier, and other operating expenses fell from ¥19,535m to ¥11,282m. Between them those two movements account for ¥50,182m of the ¥51,874m by which operating profit rose. The cash flow statement carries the matching item: a gain on disposal of fixed assets of ¥34,133m, against a loss of ¥305m last year, with proceeds from the sale of property, plant and equipment of ¥37,674m against ¥2,512m. Neither document names the asset, the buyer or the date.

Where that gain sits is the same place the trading fell. Japan and East Asia core operating profit was down 11.2 percent over the half, at ¥50,405m. Its operating profit was up 94.9 percent, at ¥80,227m.

What has not moved

The full year forecast is untouched. Asahi still expects revenue of ¥3,220,000m, core operating profit of ¥291,000m, operating profit of ¥297,000m and profit attributable to owners of ¥194,000m, and both documents say those figures are unchanged from the forecast published on 8 July. The annual dividend forecast stays at ¥57.00, against ¥52.00 last year.

One line on the face of each document is worth reading together. The first quarter statements carry a review by the auditor, and the document says that review is mandatory. The interim results announcement states that it is not subject to review at all. The interim report itself, the statutory filing, was due to be lodged the same day.