Rorze, the Hiroshima-based maker of wafer-handling robots and cleanroom transport gear, closed the quarter to May with semiconductor equipment orders of ¥42.0bn, up 1.9 times from a year earlier and a record for a second straight quarter. The backlog behind that segment swelled to ¥62.3bn. Behind the surge sits a narrowing customer base: Applied Materials, the US chip-tool giant, bought ¥8.1bn of Rorze's equipment in the quarter, 21.9% of total sales, up from 15.3% a year earlier. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company bought ¥6.8bn, 18.2% of sales, roughly steady with the 18.5% share it held last year.
| Customer | Q1 prior year (¥bn) | Share prior year | Q1 this year (¥bn) | Share this year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applied Materials, Inc. | ¥5.1bn | 15.3% | ¥8.1bn | 21.9% |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company | ¥6.1bn | 18.5% | ¥6.8bn | 18.2% |
Group-wide, net sales rose 12.5% to ¥37.2bn, a quarterly record, operating income climbed 21.2% to ¥10.2bn, and net income attributable to shareholders jumped 56.0% to ¥8.2bn. The gains came from higher shipments of wafer sorters, load ports and vacuum transfer platforms, plus a weaker yen: the average exchange rate for the quarter was ¥156 to the dollar, against ¥152 a year earlier.
Rorze ties the order jump to generative-AI infrastructure spending, specifically memory investment for AI servers including high-bandwidth memory, and to fresh capital plans from chipmakers. US sales hit a quarterly record of ¥11.1bn, 30% of the total, and Taiwan also set a record at ¥10.0bn, or 27%. China followed at ¥9.2bn, 25% of sales.
Despite the strength, Rorze left its full-year forecast unchanged from the numbers it set in April: sales of ¥159.0bn, operating income of ¥38.1bn and net income of ¥27.8bn. One quarter in, sales progress against that full-year target stands at 23.4%, marginally behind a straight-line pace, even as profit is running ahead of schedule: operating income has already reached 26.8% of its annual goal and net income 29.5%.
Management flagged risks that could complicate the rest of the year: elevated memory prices, tightening supply and longer lead times for some electronic components, and instability in resin and packaging-material costs tied to oil-price swings linked to conditions in the Middle East. Its stated response is to add staff at its Vietnam and China subsidiaries and pre-order materials to guard against delivery delays.