Kikkoman (2801) 1Q results: Strong even excluding tariff refund; announces price hikes in Europe and elsewhere, next focus on North America price hikes

Research evidence excerpt

J P M O R G A N

Asia Pacific Equity Research

05 August 2026

Kikkoman (2801)

1Q results: Strong even excluding tariff refund;

announces price hikes in Europe and elsewhere, next

focus on North America price hikes

Overweight

2801.T, 2801 JP

Price (05 Aug 26):¥1,594

Price Target (Dec-26):¥1,950

Positive: 1Q business profit was ¥25.3 billion, up 29% YoY (+18% YoY on a

constant currency basis). While this includes a refund of US tariffs, we believe

results exceeded our estimates even excluding this, and view this positively as a

strong start. Even with costs beginning to rise due to Middle East impact, earnings

management using DX has been successful in the overseas wholesale business.

While we expect costs to rise further from 2Q onward and fixed costs to also rise

significantly due to the startup of a new US factory, we expect price hikes to offset

this.

1Q results: The business margin of the North America wholesale business rose

to 9.2% in 1Q. The value of the tariff refund is unclear, but we believe the

margin exceeded 1Q FY2025’s 7.7% even excluding this. Even with logistics

costs rising from Middle East impact, Kikkoman has been able to pass on

higher costs to selling prices in a timely manner by making profit and loss

visible through DX. Even assuming a maximum tariff refund of ¥1.3 billion,

we calculate 1Q companywide business profit would have been around ¥24.0

billion, up 23% YoY and around 6% above our estimate of ¥22.7 billion

(Bloomberg consensus estimate: ¥21.2 billion). Sales also grew 6% YoY on a

constant currency basis, above our estimate (+5% YoY). Sales in the soy sauce

business and the wholesale business grew 6% YoY and 7% YoY, respectively,

in North America and 4% and 8%, respectively, in Europe, in a solid

performance. Domestic sales also grew 6% YoY, with key categories

performing solidly, led by soy milk and tomato juice.

Price hikes in Europe, Asia & Oceania: Management had previously

announced price hikes in key categories in Japan from September. This time it

announced price hikes in Europe of 5-9% in commercial-use and processing

soy sauce in August and 5-9% in home-use soy sauce in November, and in Asia

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