OXIDE Corporation's semiconductor business took ¥3.456bn of orders in the first half of the year to February 2027, a first-half record, and the unit's revenue rose 70% from a year earlier to ¥3.259bn. The order figure covers the semiconductor segment, not the whole group. Order backlog at the end of the second quarter was ¥3.39bn.
What management says is behind it
At its results briefing for analysts and institutional investors, the company said the unit's main products are single crystals and deep-ultraviolet lasers fitted to wafer defect-inspection equipment. It cited SEMI's forecast that the 2026 chip-equipment market will grow 23.2%, and said inspection demand should keep expanding over the medium to long term, though quarterly swings are possible. Management also said some customers are ordering earlier than usual to secure delivery dates. It said it does not see duplicate or unusual ordering and does not regard the order pattern as a production problem.
More Faraday-rotator capacity
Faraday rotators are the core component of the optical isolators used in data-centre optical transceivers. OXIDE said supply is short because few companies make them. It committed ¥1.455bn to extra capacity in August (see Earlier Tokyo Brief coverage), then decided in October on ¥841mn more, which the company disclosed on 14 October. It said it re-checked demand with customers before the second decision. The company declined to say how much the extra equipment will add to depreciation, saying that will come with later guidance and its medium-term plan.
The weaker side
Healthcare is going the other way. Citing worse raw-material supply and higher prices, OXIDE is renegotiating terms with major customers and has built only high-probability orders into its forecast. Its fourth-quarter healthcare revenue is projected at ¥59mn, and the full-year healthcare forecast falls to ¥1.219bn from ¥1.851bn.
Group guidance still rose: operating profit is now forecast at ¥1.367bn on revenue of ¥10.323bn, and the operating margin at 13.2% against 9.5% in the original plan.