Komatsu's construction and mining equipment business had a stronger opening quarter than a year earlier, and the company used the result to raise its full-year forecast for the second time since April. Net sales for the three months to June rose 14.7% year-on-year to ¥1.04tn, operating profit rose 8.0% to ¥151.6bn, and net profit attributable to shareholders climbed 5.4% to ¥96.2bn. The operating margin slipped 0.9 percentage point to 14.5%, as currency and pricing gains were partly offset by rising costs.
Construction equipment and vehicles, Komatsu's core business, generated ¥966.9bn of sales (up 14.4%) and ¥130.1bn of segment profit (up 6.4%). Sales in the Americas jumped 32.7%, with North America up 29.5% on infrastructure and rental demand and Latin America up 37.2% on steady copper-mining demand and higher machine sales in Chile. Japan sales fell 12.0% on persistent weakness in rental and general-user demand amid labor shortages and rising material costs, and Middle East sales dropped 54.6% as regional conditions curbed orders. Retail finance and industrial machinery, two smaller units, both grew: retail finance sales rose 7.4% to ¥32.7bn and industrial machinery sales rose 21.7% to ¥52.9bn, helped by larger presses for automakers and more maintenance work on excimer lasers for semiconductor customers.
Komatsu raised its full-year sales forecast for the year ending March 2027 to ¥4.30tn from the ¥4.12tn it projected in April, a ¥184.0bn increase, and lifted its operating profit forecast by ¥47.0bn to ¥555.0bn and its net profit forecast by ¥31.0bn to ¥349.0bn.
| Metric | April forecast | July forecast | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net sales | ¥4.12tn | ¥4.30tn | +¥184.0bn |
| Operating profit | ¥508.0bn | ¥555.0bn | +¥47.0bn |
| Net profit (Komatsu shareholders) | ¥318.0bn | ¥349.0bn | +¥31.0bn |
| Dividend per share | ¥190 | ¥190 | Unchanged |
Management attributed the upgrade to two reassessments since April: demand losses in Middle East markets are proving more limited than initially assumed, and the impact of US tariffs is now expected to be smaller. The dividend forecast holds at ¥190 per share for the year, unchanged from April.
The tariff shift behind that revision is a change in duty mix rather than a straightforward cut in rates. Komatsu's presentation shows the Section 122 additional tariff, which the April forecast assumed would run all year, in fact lapsed on July 23 and was replaced from July 24 by Section 301 duties of 12.5% on Japan, China and South Korea and 37.5% on Brazil, alongside a reduction in the steel and aluminum tariff rate from 25% to 15% for Japan, the UK, the EU and South Korea starting June 8. Combined with a ¥30.0bn IEEPA tariff refund the company has now factored in, Komatsu trimmed its estimated full-year US tariff cost to ¥25.8bn from the ¥37.8bn it projected in April.
The currency assumption behind the new forecast for the second through fourth quarters stays at 150.0 yen to the dollar, unchanged from April. The full-year average assumption rose to 152.1 yen, however, because the quarter through June itself ran weaker than Komatsu had planned.