(Bloomberg) – Tokyo Electron Ltd. decreased. Its forecast for the Wafer Silicon Market, adding to a mixed picture around high AI expenditure.
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Shares are the supplier from Japan to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (Tsm) and Samsung Electronics Co. (Ssnlf) As many as 4.6% on Friday followed the sweeping forecast, despite better than expected earnings. Tokyo Electron had previously led for two -digit growth for the wider market in 2025, but on Thursday the company said it expected sales to be in line with 2024. That's partly due to accelerated deliveries to customers Chinese in 2024, which could lead to a quiet period in investment from China in the current year, the company said.
In one of a handful of key chip gear manufacturers, Tokyo Electron is closely watched as an indicator of future spending on chips used for developing artificial intelligence. It brought an active profit of ¥ 199.6 billion ($ 1.3 billion) in the December quarter of the sale of machines used to prepare, etch and clean silicone wafers that are cut into memory or logic chips. That was up 51% from the previous year and compares with the average of analysts estimates of ¥ 174 billion. Sales also beat expectations, but Tokyo Electron did not raise his revenue prospects, as did the compatriot Advantest Corp. made a week earlier.
Support players have signs for mixed, as NV's NV -captured NV lithography lithography supplier identified a remarkably high number of orders while the Holdings PLC and Advanced Arm Micro Devices Inc. Having given careful prospects he added to doubts about the sustainability of luxury expenditure on AI.
Tokyo Electron also outlined plans to build a 104 billion ¥ 104 billion factory in Miyagi Prefecture, expanding its capacity at a time when customers like Samsung, TSMC and SK Hynix Inc.Hxscl) said they intend to continue spending on wafer processing equipment. Much of the investment in 2025 will come from those progressive logic manufacturers and high bandwidth memory producers rushing to meet AI server, said Electron CEO Tokyo Toshiki Kawai on a earnings call.
That's while the company expects chip gear purchases from Chinese customers to slow down, especially among new -entrants to chip making, the CEO said. China is expected to include a percentage in the mid -thirties of Tokyo Electron sales in the business year starting April, down by more than 40% in the current financial year. “We cannot deny that we have been affected” by US constraints on chip -related technologies exports and other geopolitical factors, Kawai said.