Kokusai Electric, the Tokyo-listed maker of wafer-processing equipment for memory and logic chips, told investors on August 6 that the earnings forecast it published in May had already fallen behind reality. The company raised its operating profit forecast for the year to March 2027 to ¥79.4bn, a 46% jump from the ¥54.5bn it projected three months earlier. Revenue guidance rose to ¥340.0bn from ¥280.0bn, and net profit attributable to owners of the parent is now expected to reach ¥55.5bn, up from ¥38.8bn.
| Metric | Previous Forecast (May 2026) | Revised Forecast (Aug 2026) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-year revenue | ¥280.0bn | ¥340.0bn | +21.4% |
| Full-year operating profit | ¥54.5bn | ¥79.4bn | +45.7% |
| Full-year net profit | ¥38.8bn | ¥55.5bn | +43.0% |
| Annual dividend per share | ¥47 | ¥65 | +¥18 |
The company pointed to one cause: semiconductor manufacturers are accelerating spending on next-generation DRAM and logic production to keep pace with generative-AI demand, and doing so faster than Kokusai Electric assumed when it set its original targets. First-quarter results released the same day support that account. Revenue for the three months to June rose 45.6% from a year earlier to ¥75.4bn, operating profit climbed 63.9% to ¥15.9bn, and net profit rose 70.6% to ¥11.6bn. In its earnings presentation, the company said DRAM-related equipment sales jumped 158% year on year in the quarter and Logic/Foundry sales rose 82%, while NAND-related sales fell 34% as that segment waits for its own capacity-expansion cycle.
The upgrade comes with a bigger dividend. Kokusai Electric raised its annual dividend forecast by ¥18 to ¥65 a share, with the interim payment rising to ¥32 from ¥23 and the year-end payment to ¥33 from ¥24. On an adjusted-profit basis, the revised payout equals 25.2% of earnings, inside the company's stated target range of 20% to 30% of consolidated profit.
The scale of the revision also moves up a longer-term marker. Kokusai Electric's medium-term plan had targeted more than ¥330bn in annual sales by the year to March 2029; the company's presentation materials now show that figure arriving two years early, for the year to March 2027, evidence of how far AI-linked capital spending has pulled forward demand for the batch furnaces and film-deposition tools it sells to chipmakers.
The company's cash position has also strengthened. First-quarter free cash flow was ¥6.6bn, and net cash, calculated as cash and equivalents minus interest-bearing debt, stood at ¥6.6bn, roughly unchanged from the previous year-end.