Top Stories: JAPAN FIRST TO MARKET

Research evidence excerpt

Top Stories: JAPAN FIRST TO MARKET

Asia Pacific Equity Research

Japan First to Market 23 July 2026

Top Stories

Semiconductor/Tech Materials (Mio Shikanai)

Feedback from investor visits in Asia

We visited investors in Asia during the week of July 13. They remained bullish on fundamentals, and discussions centered on

where share prices will bottom and identifying relatively resilient stocks. As at the time of our June visits to US and European

investors (details here), our focus stocks are, in order, Kioxia (285A; Overweight; covered jointly with Jay Kwon), Tokyo

Electron (8035; Overweight), Advantest (6857; Overweight) and SCREEN Holdings (7735; Overweight), Nittobo (3110;

Overweight) and JX Advanced Metals (5016; Overweight; covered jointly with Yasuhiro Nakada). Discussion focused on

three points: (1) Kioxia’s earnings outlook (pricing, long-term agreements [LTAs], and SLC); (2) the feasibility of price revisions

at the front-end process companies; and (3) production capacity and pricing power, mainly among the materials names. Among

individual names, interest was high in the above stocks plus Disco’s (6146; Neutral) growth outlook, Lasertec’s (6920;

Neutral) order trends, and Rigaku Holdings’ (268A; Overweight) medium-term X-ray outlook.

OBIC Business Consultant (4733) (Matthew Henderson) (4733 JP, OW)

1Q results: Faster cloud shift progress than we expected

Slightly positive: 1Q FY2026 sales rose 13.8% YoY to ¥13.8 billion (we forecast ¥13.6 billion, and the Bloomberg consensus

estimate was ¥13.5 billion) while operating profit grew 18.1% to ¥6.6 billion (¥6.1 billion, ¥6.1 billion). Sales thus slightly beat

our estimate while costs slightly undershot our estimate. Net growth in cloud contracts for core business services was solid at