Citizen Watch Co, Ltd.

Citizen Watch announced on the 6th that a server at a contractor company was subjected to unauthorized access, and that the stored personal information of approximately 100,000 customers may have been leaked. No secondary harm has been confirmed, the company said. According to Scalar Communications, which Citizen had entrusted with handling customer inquiries, the unauthorized access occurred between the night of October 2 and the morning of October 3, and the names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other data of about 100,000 people may have been leaked. The company said that if bank account or credit card information had been entered in the inquiry details field, it may also have been compromised. The affected parties are users of the websites for the Citizen, Bulova, and Frederique Constant brands, and no unauthorized access to Citizen itself has been confirmed.

An analysis by Reuters has found that the number of Japanese listed companies mentioning rare earths in their annual securities reports and other filings has surged since May this year, with the scope also broadening. Until April, the number of companies making such mentions was below 40 in most months, but it rose to 86 in May and 105 in June, doubling compared to the same period a year earlier. More than two-thirds of these companies stated that there is an impact on their performance or business activities, or that such an impact could materialize in the future. Until April, mentions were mainly concentrated in capital goods such as machinery and materials-related sectors, but from May onward they spread to general consumer goods and electronics-related sectors, with Citizen Watch and Omron also listing it as a risk factor. China introduced export restrictions on heavy rare earths and magnets in April 2025, and strengthened restrictions targeting Japan in January this year. Customs data shows that exports of terbium and dysprosium oxide to Japan have been halted since November last year.