Murata Manufacturing posted its highest-ever quarterly revenue for the three months to June, and used the results to raise its full-year profit outlook above the target it set in April. Revenue reached ¥502.3bn, up 20.7% from a year earlier, while operating profit rose 59.8% to ¥98.5bn and net profit attributable to shareholders climbed 63.7% to ¥81.4bn.
Revenue growth came mainly from capacitors bound for AI servers and data centers. Sales in the capacitor segment rose 30.0% to ¥282.5bn, and revenue from computer-related applications, the category that includes data centers, jumped 47.0% to ¥102.9bn. Operating profit's rise came from a different source: higher factory output lifted operating leverage, and a weaker yen added further gains, together outweighing higher fixed costs and lower unit prices. The average dollar rate for the quarter was ¥159.49, against ¥144.60 a year earlier. Murata estimates that every ¥1 move in the dollar-yen rate shifts its annual revenue by roughly ¥9bn and operating profit by roughly ¥4.5bn.
On the strength of that quarter, Murata revised its full-year guidance upward from the forecast it issued in April. It now expects revenue of ¥2.11tn, up 7.7% from the ¥1.96tn it forecast in April, operating profit of ¥430bn, up 13.2% from ¥380bn, and net profit of ¥338bn, up 15.4% from ¥293bn.
| Metric | April Forecast | Revised Forecast (July) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ¥1.96tn | ¥2.11tn | +7.7% |
| Operating profit | ¥380bn | ¥430bn | +13.2% |
| Pre-tax profit | ¥390bn | ¥451bn | +15.6% |
| Net profit (parent) | ¥293bn | ¥338bn | +15.4% |
| EPS | ¥160.96 | ¥185.68 | +15.4% |
The upgrade rests partly on a currency call: Murata raised its assumed dollar-yen rate for the second quarter onward to ¥155, from ¥150 in the April forecast. It also raised planned capital spending by ¥5bn to ¥255bn to expand capacity for data-center-related parts. Shareholder returns are unchanged: the annual dividend forecast stays at ¥70 per share (¥35 at midyear, ¥35 at year-end, against ¥65 paid last year), and the company will proceed with its planned ¥150bn share buyback.
Orders tell a slightly more complicated story. Murata's quarterly order intake hit a record ¥673.9bn, pushing its book-to-bill ratio to 1.34, the highest in the disclosed quarterly series. Management flagged that some of that strength may not be pure demand: longer lead times in tight-supply categories raise the possibility that customers are placing orders early to secure allocation, and the company says it is watching the trend rather than taking the order book at face value. The quarter also carried two offsetting one-off items: a roughly ¥4bn benefit tied to US tariff refunds and a roughly ¥3bn loss from a dropped power-module project, netting to about ¥1bn.