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Japanese toilet maker Toto Ltd. saw its shares surge as much as 11% due to booming memory demand, which has excited expectations for growth in its lesser-known chipmaking materials operations, specifically its electrostatic chucks used in NAND chipmaking.
AI 生成摘要
日本衛浴大廠TOTO的股價因AI熱潮意外飆升，主因是記憶體需求強勁，帶動其鮮為人知的晶片製造材料業務，特別是其用於NAND晶片製造的靜電吸盤業務，預期將迎來成長。
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(Bloomberg) -- Shares of Japanese toilet maker Toto Ltd. gained the most in five years after booming memory demand excited expectations of growth in its little-known chipmaking materials operations.
The stock surged as much as 11%, its steepest rise since February 2021, after Goldman Sachs analysts said Toto’s electrostatic chucks used in NAND chipmaking will likely benefit from an AI infrastructure buildout that’s tightening supplies of both high-end and commodity memory.
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Analysts Sachiko Okada and Sayako Tominaga raised their rating for Toto to buy from neutral, citing hopes for “significant profit growth” from the firm’s chuck-making business. The memory industry’s tight supply-demand environment will be a tailwind, they said. Toto expects AI data center construction to continue to raise demand for its electrostatic chucks, a representative said.
Known for its heated toilet seats, the maker of washlets has for decades been part of the semiconductor and display supply chain via its advanced ceramic parts and films. Its electrostatic chucks — which it began mass producing in 1988 — are used to hold silicon wafers in place during chipmaking while helping to control temperature and contamination, according to the company. The company’s new domain business accounted for 42% of its total operating income in the fiscal year ended March 2025, Bloomberg-compiled data show.
The likes of Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are investing hundreds of billions of dollars into data centers for artificial intelligence services, triggering widespread shortages of semiconductors. That’s spurring memory makers around the world to ramp up production, from SK Hynix Inc. to Samsung Electronics Co. and Kioxia Holdings Corp., and lifting demand for products such as Toto’s.
Fine ceramics are similar to the sanitary ceramics used in Toto’s toilets, but with strength comparable to metals. Ceramic is lighter than metal and able to resist higher temperatures without interfering electrically with chipmaking tools, but are more brittle and costly.
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Japan’s long history in chip production has led many companies, including unlikely names like consumer product manufacturers, to build out semiconductor-related operations. MSG seasoning inventor Ajinomoto Co. produces chip insulating films — a business that arose from its command of amino acids. Cosmetics firm Kao Corp., which sells facial cleansers, also has a chip wafer cleaning business.
Thursday’s gains helped make ceramics the Topix’s best-performing sector in the afternoon in Tokyo. The toilet firm’s rise came amid a broad rally in AI shares, with OpenAI investor SoftBank Group Corp. and chip tool maker Disco Corp. climbing over 10%.
(Updates with company comment.)
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