While the Nikkei reported in August that net profits of Japan’s publicly listed corporations in the April-June quarter of 2022 declined by 26% year-on-year, the Ministry of Finance’s quarterly survey of corporate financial statements, released in September, showed a record increase in ordinary profits of 17.6% for the same period.

Writing in the November-December issue of Japan Spotlight, Research Director Nobuo Iizuka examines the reasons for the discrepancy, such as the difference between “net profit” and “ordinary profit,” the use of consolidated versus nonconsolidated statistics, and the fact that the Nikkei figure would have shown a 10% increase had the SoftBank Group’s huge losses were excluded.

Still, Iizuka notes, we will probably have to wait until September next year, when the results of the MOF’s survey for all of 2022 are released, before the “mystery” can be solved.

“Impact on Japanese Corporate Profits of Non-Domestic & Non-Core Business Becoming Stronger,” Japan Spotlight
https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/246th_Economic_Indicators.pdf

Profile of Research Director Nobuo Iizuka
https://www.tkfd.or.jp/en/experts/detail.php?id=381