Our Company Featured in Teikoku News – Hyogo Edition
2025.3.31
As a Small Core Connecting Japan and the World
In a situation where exchange rate fluctuations are intense, companies involved in import and export are being forced to respond to rapid changes. This time, we interviewed Mr. Koichi Taniguchi (38), of Uni-Core Co., Ltd., which has grown significantly as a used car exporter despite its short history.
Business Origins
This company is still young, having been founded as an individual business in November 2020 and incorporated in February 2022. The representative, Mr. Taniguchi, has approximately seven years of experience as a salesperson at a used car export company in Hyogo Prefecture. The trigger for his independence was remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under restrictions on commuting to the office, he continued to achieve the highest sales figures within the company even in a situation where he was not being managed by the company, which led to his decision to start his own business. The company name Uni-Core is derived from the meanings of “Uni” – “Universal ( – the world)”, “United ( – connecting)”, “Unique ( – one and only)”, and “Core ( – nucleus).”
Business Transformation from Intermediary to Supplier
In the early days of the business, funding was difficult, so the business focused mainly on sales agency services for domestic dealers. As a result, sales did not grow due to reliance solely on commission income, and consulting contracts were terminated due to concerns about external creditworthiness. Nevertheless, the company gradually built up its achievements, and in 2023, began exporting and selling used automobiles directly to dealers in several countries. Consequently, in the second year of its establishment, the company’s sales increased significantly from 14 million yen to 330 million yen. By conducting monthly financial closings and creating monthly income and expenditure reports, the company built external credibility, and additional funding became possible. In the third year of establishment, the company achieved sales of 1.55 billion yen and ordinary profit of 96 million yen.
Future Outlook
Now in its fourth year as a corporation, the company has established a new office in Ashiya City and is working to strengthen its corporate structure by hiring new employees. In addition to hiring staff who can handle vehicle inspections and maintenance, which the representative himself has been doing, he plans to develop sales personnel other than himself, so that he can focus on developing new trading partner countries. In particular, the sale of used cars to emerging markets offers many benefits to developing and middle-income countries, such as providing high-quality, affordable means of transportation and creating new employment opportunities in sales and maintenance in those countries. We will pay attention to the future development of this company, which continues to grow through its proactive overseas expansion despite being a young enterprise.
(Kobe Branch Investigation Department 1, Tatsuya Fujii)