President’s 2026 New Year’s Greetings

Happy New Year everyone! From our Tokyo Otemachi office, I extend my warmest season's greetings to all members of the Sumitomo Corporation Group.

How did you spend your holiday season and New Year? I returned to my hometown in Kansai for just one day before the New Year. I welcomed a quiet New Year's Day with my family and visited a shrine for our annual hatsumode tradition. There, as I do every year, I prayed for my family's health and for world peace.

Looking Back on 2025

Looking back on last year, Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan immediately comes to mind. It was widely attended, attracting over 25 million visitors in total. The Sumitomo Pavilion hosted by the Sumitomo Group welcomed over 850,000 visitors. It was featured in the media as one of the most popular private sector pavilions, and I believe it was a tremendous success. I visited twice. These opportunities to broaden my vision of how to design a future society through the story of life were truly inspiring.

Last year, I took part in international events, making it a year where I met with presidents and prime ministers from around the world. Everyone I spoke with expressed high expectations for our company's contribution to economic growth and industrial development in their countries.

Toward the Final Year of the Mid-Term Management Plan 2026

Looking at international affairs, last year was marked by global policy changes and heightened geopolitical risks, which heightened tensions around the world economy and security. In addition, rapid technological advancements, including AI, and other complex factors have combined to make the business environment increasingly difficult to predict. We expect these challenging conditions to persist into 2026.

However, regardless of this environment, the fundamental path we must follow and the essence of what we must accomplish remain unchanged. That means accelerating our efforts toward growth through the steady execution of strategies under our Medium-Term Management Plan 2026, and achieving “No. 1 in Each Field”.

This year marks the final fiscal year of this plan. It is also the year to fully implement our Digital and AI Strategy (DAIS) formulated last year. I believe that not using AI is now the greatest risk for us. Moreover, the core of DAIS is for each organization with frontline operations to leverage its strengths and build business models that dominate the competition by fully utilizing digital and AI.
We will leverage digital and AI across all frontline operations – including sales, corporate and regional organizations – to lead the transformation of society and industry.

In last year's New Year's address, I spoke about the importance of "strategy and individual strength" and "self-discipline and self-responsibility" inspired by watching a high school soccer tournament at the start of the year. Same as last year, I watched the same tournament again. Then, I witnessed a match where a team that had been 2-0 down late in the second half scored a scrappy equalizer in stoppage time and went on to win in a penalty shootout. I realized it is crucial how hungry you are to win. Last year, our group announced significant investment projects. These investments will pave the way for future growth, and we will continue pursuing inorganic approaches. However, the foundation of growth remains the "organic growth" of each business line. We will achieve organic growth with a strong determination to overtake the competitors ahead of us, to win against our rivals no matter what and to achieve "No. 1 in Each Field."

Essential Human Capabilities in the Age of Digital and AI

Furthermore, given the current circumstances, there is one important point I want to share with each of you. Even as digital and AI technologies evolve at an astonishing pace, what truly differentiates us from competitors is human relationships and our inherent humanity. I often say, "In the end, it comes down to human capabilities." In other words, it means the abilities to attract and inspire people. This begins with sincerity and building trust. Beyond that, I believe that it is essential to enhance your abilities to inspire dreams, listen to others, consider ideas from diverse perspectives, and explain complex matters in simple terms. By developing these abilities, I want you to become individuals who make others think, "I want to work with this person." And by combining AI with our human capabilities, we will create new value in each field.

In closing, I sincerely hope that 2026 will be a year filled with hope, happiness and meaningful achievements for the Sumitomo Corporation Group, all our employees and for their families. I wish you health, happiness, and good fortune in the New Year and beyond.

* This is the New Year's address delivered to Sumitomo Corporation Group executives and staff on 5 January 2026.

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