Lasertec Corporation, the Yokohama-based maker of semiconductor mask and wafer inspection tools, reported its first sales and profit decline in the five years covered by its own results table. Consolidated sales for the year to June 2026 fell 8.3% to ¥230.5bn from ¥251.5bn a year earlier, ordinary profit dropped 9.7% to ¥107.9bn from ¥119.4bn, and net profit attributable to owners fell 8.5% to ¥77.5bn from ¥84.7bn.
The decline came even though new orders rebounded sharply, to ¥237.5bn from a depressed ¥105.2bn a year earlier. Lasertec pointed to heavy investment in AI data-centre chips, with market-wide demand for CPUs, GPUs and high-bandwidth memory driving the order recovery, though sales for the year still reflected the weaker order intake booked in the prior period rather than the stronger orders now flowing in. By product line, semiconductor-related equipment sales fell 17.2% to ¥168.1bn and other products dropped 32.5% to ¥3.7bn, while service revenue rose 36.5% to ¥58.6bn.
Lasertec's six-year plan, running through the year ending June 2030, still targets sales of ¥400bn to ¥500bn and an operating margin of 35% or more. Management said it aims to cut delivery lead times from 1.5-2 years to 0.5-1.5 years, lift service revenue to at least 20% of sales, and add at least 200 group employees a year. Group headcount has already grown to 1,335 from 1,163.