Tokyo Electron Posts Record JPY 2.44 Trillion FY2026, Guides First Half FY2027 Up 33% — Etch and Coater/Developer Lead the Charge

By NineScrolls Team · 2026-05-02 · 5 min read · Industry

Summary

Tokyo Electron on April 30, 2026 reported record fiscal-year results and issued first-half FY2027 guidance well above consensus, sending the stock up as much as 8.6% intraday. Net sales for the year ended March 31, 2026 reached JPY 2,443.5 billion, a record high, with net income of JPY 574.4 billion. Management guided H1 FY2027 net sales to JPY 1,570 billion — a 33% year-on-year jump that points to a fiscal year on track to challenge the company's JPY 3 trillion long-term target.

For NineScrolls, the more interesting numbers are inside the segment guidance: coater/developer revenue is targeted to grow more than 50%, etch systems more than 25%, and advanced packaging more than 60% in FY2027. Those are the businesses that buy plasma sources, vacuum hardware, and process gas delivery from the supply chain.

Record Full-Year FY2026 Results

For fiscal 2026 (year ended March 31, 2026), Tokyo Electron posted net sales of JPY 2,443.5 billion, a record high and up 0.5% year-over-year. Net income climbed 5.6% to JPY 574.4 billion, with earnings per share of JPY 1,254.57. Operating income of JPY 624.9 billion exceeded the company's own February guidance of JPY 593 billion. Free cash flow set a record at JPY 433.2 billion.

The numbers cap a year in which Tokyo Electron held its position as the world's largest etch and coater/developer equipment supplier, despite a sharp pullback in Chinese demand and continued export-control friction.

Q4 Beat and Stock Reaction

The fourth quarter (January–March 2026) was the standout. Revenue hit JPY 711.8 billion, up 28.9% sequentially, with operating income of JPY 205.6 billion, a 77.1% quarter-over-quarter increase. Gross margin expanded 4.1 percentage points to 46.8%. EPS of JPY 468.67 came in 21.23% above analyst forecasts.

The market response was immediate. Tokyo Electron shares rose as much as 8.6% to JPY 48,190 in Tokyo trading on April 30, closing up 5.47% at JPY 47,620 on volume 70.6% above the trailing average. The stock was among the top Nikkei 225 performers on the day.

FY2027 Guidance: 33% First-Half Sales Growth

The bigger driver of the rally was forward guidance. Tokyo Electron forecast first-half FY2027 net sales of JPY 1,570 billion, a 33% year-on-year increase and above the JPY 1,420 billion analyst consensus. First-half operating income was guided to JPY 431 billion, up 42.2% and ahead of the JPY 405.9 billion estimate. The implied operating margin of 27.5% would be a record for the company on a half-year basis.

Tokyo Electron has previously stated long-term financial targets of net sales of JPY 3 trillion or higher and ROE of 35% or higher in FY2027. The H1 guidance puts the company on a credible path to that number for the first time.

Segment Outlook: Etch, Coater/Developer, Advanced Packaging

Inside the FY2027 outlook, Tokyo Electron broke out segment growth expectations that line up directly with the leading-edge fab build-out:

Coater/developer revenue, where Tokyo Electron holds more than 90% market share, is expected to grow more than 50% year-over-year, driven by DRAM and advanced logic capacity additions. Etch systems are projected to grow more than 25%, supported by demand for high-aspect-ratio contact, BEOL interconnect, and gate-all-around channel-formation processes. Advanced packaging tools, which generated about JPY 200 billion in FY2026, are projected to grow more than 60% as customers ramp 2.5D and 3D HBM stacks.

Management also flagged its plasma-enhanced CVD gap-fill product line. The plasma-enhanced CVD market is sized at roughly JPY 1 trillion, and Tokyo Electron expects gap-fill to capture about 10% of that as its damage-free deposition technology moves through evaluation with leading-edge customers.

China Mix Down to 26.8%, Advanced Logic Picks Up the Slack

China's share of Q4 revenue dropped to 26.8%, down sharply from 47.4% in Q4 FY2024 — a function of both export controls and the unwind of the 2024 mature-node spending bubble. Tokyo Electron said equipment for advanced chips will rise to nearly 40% of total sales in FY2026, more than offsetting the China decline.

That mix shift is the structural story behind the guidance: revenue is moving from high-volume mature-node tools shipped into China toward higher-value 2nm logic, leading-edge DRAM, and HBM packaging tools shipped into Taiwan, Korea, the U.S., and Japan.

What This Means for Plasma Processing and Thin Film Deposition

Tokyo Electron's guidance is one of the cleanest reads on 2026–2027 fab equipment demand the industry will get. Three implications for the plasma processing and thin film deposition supply chain stand out:

Plasma etch is back to double-digit growth. A "more than 25%" guide on etch systems pulls through demand for the entire plasma-source ecosystem: ICP and CCP RF generators, matching networks, electrostatic chucks, yttrium-coated chamber components, and process gas delivery for fluorocarbons, hydrogen, and chlorine chemistries. High-aspect-ratio contact and gate-all-around channel etch, which Tokyo Electron called out specifically, are the most plasma-source-intensive processes in the fab.

PECVD gap-fill is being commercialized. Tokyo Electron's note that its damage-free PECVD gap-fill technology is in evaluation with leading-edge customers, against a JPY 1 trillion PECVD TAM, points to a coming refresh cycle in plasma-enhanced CVD chambers. Damage-free gap-fill is the process that lets advanced logic and DRAM fill ever-narrower trenches without plasma-induced device damage — a problem that has dogged the industry since 7nm.

Advanced packaging is now an equipment supercycle, not a niche. The "more than 60%" growth on a JPY 200 billion base means Tokyo Electron alone will ship roughly JPY 320 billion of packaging tools in FY2027. That flows through to PVD sputter targets, electroplating, deep reactive-ion etch (DRIE) for through-silicon vias, and plasma activation for hybrid bonding — the same basket of processes that BESI, SCHMID, and Lam Research are competing to scale.

For component suppliers, the message is uniform across Tokyo Electron, Lam Research's prior FY guidance, and KLA's record Q3 print: WFE is in a sustained upcycle, and the upcycle is concentrated in the deposition and etch tools that NineScrolls' precision plasma processing and thin film deposition customer base depends on.