Japan’s top VTuber agency has doubled its profit year-over-year

It’s been quite a year for Anycolor. In April, the Japanese company filed for an IPO, becoming the first VTuber agency to go public. Over the summer, two of the company’s most popular virtual characters — Kuzuha and Kanae — topped viewership charts on YouTube Gaming. Then, in October, Forbes reported that Anycolor founder Riku Tazumi had achieved a net worth of $1.1 billion.

The end of the year has brought mixed news for Anycolor, though the agency’s latest financial report provided cause for celebration. Despite an uneven performance on the stock market, Anycolor reported a quarterly net profit of 2.99 billion yen, which comes out to about $21.7 million. That profit margin is more than twice as high as the figure Anycolor reported in the equivalent quarter a year ago.

Anycolor’s quarterly revenue reached 11.9 billion yen ($87.1 million), which is also a significant year-over-year jump. The firm’s 112 VTubers delivered more than 300 million hours of watch time over three months. The 26 members of the supergroup Nijisanji, including Kuzuha and Kanae, recorded 73 million hours of watch time all on their own.

Much of Nijisanji’s content is broadcast on an official English-language YouTube channel

. “Nijisanji En has been steadily growing since its launch in May 2021, and is progressing better than expected at the time the initial earnings forecast was formulated,” reads Anycolor’s quarterly report. “Nijisanji progress in all areas, particularly in commerce area, has exceeded expectations.”

Anycolor’s commercial success has been aided by the expansion of its live and in-person programming. A Nijisanji festival took place in Chiba in October, and the group’s VTubers gathered fans from around the world for special streams. A virtual baseball tournament featuring Nijisanji stars peaked at 310,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube.

Despite Anycolor’s many successes, it has struggled to gain traction as a publicly traded company. Its share price sat at ¥10,520 ($79.50) early in December, but it has since slid below ¥6,000 ($45.34). Dexerto noted that Anycolor recently lifted a share lock-up, which could explain the decline of its stock.

Even with those woes, Anycolor still has a lot to look forward to. VTubers are on the rise, so 2023 could be a banner year for the prominent Japanese agency.