Nitto Boseki Co., Ltd.

Nitto Boseki reported first-quarter operating profit for the fiscal year ending March 2027 of 7.9 billion yen, up 84.8% year on year, and raised its full-year operating profit forecast to 30 billion yen from the previous 26 billion yen. Revenue came to 34 billion yen, up 20.6% from a year earlier, while quarterly net profit attributable to owners of the parent rose 84.2% to 5.8 billion yen. The main driver was the electronic materials business, where sales of low-dielectric specialty glass for AI servers and low-thermal-expansion specialty glass for semiconductor package substrates grew, and price revisions also contributed. The share price rose more than 8% from the previous trading day on August 12 to 3,050 yen.

In disclosures released on August 5, many companies reported upward revisions to earnings and sharp profit increases as positive factors. Takamatsu Construction Group saw its ordinary profit for the April–June quarter jump 2.9 times. Nitto Boseki raised its full-year ordinary profit forecast by 15 percent, adding to its record profit outlook. Kao lifted its full-year net profit forecast by 4 percent and introduced a new shareholder benefit program. On the negative side, Cruise saw its ordinary loss for the April–June quarter widen, and Unicharm cut its full-year net profit forecast by 19 percent.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang met with executives from several Japanese suppliers at a Tokyo izakaya, signaling the company's deepening reliance on Japan's industrial base for its AI expansion. The gathering included Kioxia Holdings, Shin-Etsu Chemical, Tokyo Electron, Ajinomoto, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Taiyo Yuden, Panasonic Holdings, and Nitto Boseki, spanning flash memory, silicon wafers, manufacturing equipment, chip-packaging film, fiber-optic cables, capacitors, and ultra-thin glass cloth. Huang stated that Japan provides foundational technologies for semiconductor manufacturing, and Tokyo Electron's CEO noted NVIDIA has substantial expectations for the Japanese supply chain. The meeting underscores the critical role of these specialized suppliers as NVIDIA, valued at more than $5.1 trillion, scales its AI infrastructure.

Oracle shares fell about 11% after the company reported that capital spending for fiscal 2026 reached $55 billion, exceeding its $50 billion target, and outlined plans for $70 billion in fiscal 2027. The spending ramp is tied to a $638 billion remaining performance obligation backlog, more than half of which comes from OpenAI, while prepaid AI contracts total $75 billion. Motley Fool contributors noted that the rush by AI firms to go public—including the upcoming SpaceX IPO and confidential filings by OpenAI and Anthropic—is driven by massive capital needs and a favorable market. They identified bottlenecks in the AI build-out, highlighting PDF Solutions for chip-defect detection, Prologis for its data-center power capacity and 3,000 development-ready acres, and Japanese firms Nitto Boseki and Ajinomoto for specialized chip materials. The discussion also touched on the persistent valuation gap between U.S. and European stocks, with Exor NV cited as a holding company trading at 0.4 times book value.