RYODEN Corporation, a Tokyo-listed industrial and electronics trading house, more than doubled quarterly operating profit in the three months to June, and it says the driver was demand tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure, not a one-off swing in its usual factory-automation and electronics distribution business.
Net sales for the quarter rose 23.5% year on year to ¥61.1bn, operating profit rose 132.8% to ¥2.04bn, and recurring profit rose 117.6% to ¥2.17bn. Management raised its full-year operating profit forecast for the year to March 2027 by 25.0%, from ¥6.0bn to ¥7.5bn, and lifted its sales forecast 6.3%, from ¥237bn to ¥252bn.
Where the growth is coming from
The company's supplementary presentation breaks out AI- and data-center-linked order growth separately from each segment's total results, and the gap between the two tells the story. The cooling-and-building-systems unit's overall quarterly sales rose 15.5% to ¥9.99bn and operating profit rose 50.5% to ¥648mn, but management attributes that gain largely to AI and general-purpose server cooling equipment, where AI/data-center-related sales are running roughly 550% ahead of last year. The factory-automation segment's sales rose 33.7% to ¥15.1bn and operating profit jumped 430.4% to ¥441mn, helped by semiconductor-manufacturing equipment and CNC parts-processing machines built for data centers, where AI/data-center-related sales are up about 140%. Electronics, the largest segment, posted sales of ¥34.1bn (up 23.9%) and operating profit of ¥1.53bn (up 107.1%), with AI/data-center power and cooling components plus in-vehicle memory price increases both cited as contributors.
| Segment | Main AI/data-center use | YoY sales growth |
|---|---|---|
| FA Systems | Semiconductor manufacturing equipment; CNC parts-processing machines for data centers | ~140% |
| Cooling & Building Systems | AI and general-purpose server/data-center air conditioning and cooling | ~550% |
| Electronics | Power and cooling systems, core components for communications equipment | ~150% |
| Company-wide | All AI/data-center-related sales | ~150% |
The X-Tech segment, which houses ICT, smart agriculture and healthcare equipment lines, was the exception: sales fell 5.5% to ¥1.79bn and the operating loss widened to ¥27mn, as hospital equipment spending stayed weak.
Reallocating the upside
RYODEN is using part of the earnings upgrade to sweeten shareholder returns. The board raised its annual dividend target to ¥170 per share on a pre-split basis, from ¥150, aiming for a dividend-on-equity ratio of 4.3%. It will also split its stock one-for-two effective October 1, with the post-split dividend set at ¥85 interim and ¥42.5 final, and it plans to repurchase up to 600,000 post-split shares (300,000 pre-split) between August and December 2026.
The company separately disclosed two moves tied to its AI push: it completed the acquisition of German semiconductor distributor TOPAS in July, a company founded in 1978 with roughly €18.08mn in sales for the year to June 2025, to expand its European industrial and medical-sector customer base. It also signed a strategic partnership with Guangdong-based Mogulinker, an industrial AI and energy-optimization firm with more than 6,000 installations, to jointly develop "physical AI" control systems for air compressors, cooling towers, pumps and air-conditioning equipment aimed at automotive and semiconductor manufacturers in China.
The AI/data-center growth figures for the full year include deals still under negotiation, not just confirmed orders, a caveat management flagged directly in the presentation.