Daifuku booked ¥781.2bn of orders in the nine months to September 30, up 56.5% from a year earlier and, the company said, already above any full year in its history. Sales over the same period were ¥553.8bn, up 13.9%. Orders are bookings; sales are what the handling-system maker has delivered and recognised so far, and the gap between the two is the story of this quarter.
Chip lines lead the order book
Daifuku credited semiconductor production-line systems with driving the increase, with general manufacturing and distribution and car-plant systems also strong. Clean Factomation, a subsidiary serving chipmakers, took orders of ¥121.7bn, up 199.2%, on demand for advanced chips for generative AI. The Suzhou-based unit rose 190.2% to ¥65.1bn on China's push for domestic chip supply. By industry, electronics orders reached ¥412.7bn against ¥170.6bn a year earlier.
The parent company shows how orders and revenue part ways. Its orders rose 62.3% to ¥264.8bn, but its sales fell 10.6% to ¥172.8bn because growth in the backlog at the end of the prior period was limited. The company's presentation puts the group order backlog at a record, and its quarterly chart shows ¥929.4bn at the end of September, including €195mn of backlog from Eisenmann, the German paint-and-surface-treatment engineering firm Daifuku bought outright on July 1.
Profit grows slower than orders
Operating profit rose 11.0% to ¥83.5bn, ordinary profit 10.8% to ¥85.9bn and net profit attributable to owners of the parent 8.2% to ¥63.3bn. Daifuku said sales, operating profit, ordinary profit and net profit were all records for a nine-month period. The operating margin fell to 15.1% from 15.5%, a drop of 0.4 points. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose to ¥55.6bn from ¥44.2bn; the company said higher gross margin absorbed spending on people and research.
Currency helped. The yen averaged ¥158.76 to the dollar against ¥147.91 a year earlier, and was also weaker against the yuan, the won and the Taiwan dollar. Daifuku estimates that exchange-rate movements as a whole added about ¥32.5bn to orders, ¥24.4bn to sales and ¥4.0bn to operating profit.
Forecasts move up
On November 11 Daifuku raised its forecasts for the year to December 2026 from the figures it gave on August 6. It cited a good order environment, projects progressing on the opening backlog, and some chip-line sales being recognised earlier than planned. The new forecast includes Eisenmann from July, and the presentation puts that contribution at €110mn of sales, about ¥20bn.
| Measure | Previous (Aug 6) | New (Nov 11) |
|---|---|---|
| Orders | ¥860bn to ¥900bn | ¥970bn to ¥1tn |
| Sales | ¥735bn | ¥770bn |
| Operating profit | ¥113bn | ¥119bn |
| Net profit attributable to owners of parent | ¥86.5bn | ¥89.5bn |
The company also gave a reference forecast under IFRS, which it will adopt at the end of this year: operating profit of ¥117bn against ¥119bn under Japanese standards.
Buyback and the stated risks
The board also approved a share buyback of up to ¥40bn, or 6.6mn shares (1.77% of shares outstanding excluding treasury stock at October 31), through market purchases from November 12 to January 31, 2027. This is a ceiling, not spending to date, and Daifuku notes some orders may go unexecuted depending on market conditions.
Daifuku flagged two risks. It has no major production or sales base in the Middle East and the region was under 0.1% of last year's sales, so direct impact is limited. But higher oil prices and disrupted shipping could constrain some materials and raise costs on orders already won, and global uncertainty could delay customers' capital spending.