Kioxia Overtakes Toyota as Japan's Most Valuable Firm

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Amid a global artificial intelligence and semiconductor boom that has driven Japan's stock market to historic highs, shares in Kioxia Holdings have surged, overtaking Toyota Motor in market capitalization at the close of trading on June 12.

Expectations for mid- to long-term earnings growth, driven by a sharp rise in demand for memory chips, continue to draw investment.

Profit for a Single Quarter Set to Exceed Last Year's Total

Kioxia shares closed at ¥83,300 (about $516) on July 3, giving the company a market capitalization of roughly ¥45.5 trillion ($282 billion).

In roughly a year and a half since its Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market debut in December 2024, Kioxia's market capitalization has grown more than fiftyfold.

The rise reflects a rapid acceleration in earnings. Kioxia's consolidated net profit for the fiscal year ending March 2026 more than doubled from the previous year to a record ¥554.4 billion ($3.4 billion).

Net profit for the April-to-June quarter alone is projected at ¥869 billion ($5.4 billion), up 47.5 times from a year earlier and already well above the full-year profit booked in the fiscal year through March 2026.

A Data Center Building Boom Changes the Picture

In the memory chip market, South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix produce both DRAM, used for data processing, and NAND flash memory, used for large-scale data storage.

Kioxia, which makes NAND only, had been seen as at a disadvantage. A construction boom in data centers, driven in part by AI, has sharply lifted NAND demand and shifted the picture.

The rally has also pushed up the minimum investment needed to buy Kioxia shares, to more than ¥8 million ($53,000) at the July 3 closing price, making new purchases difficult for individual investors.

At the company's annual shareholders' meeting on June 25, Vice President Yoshihiko Kawamura said Kioxia plans to conduct a stock split to bring the share price to a more accessible level and that an announcement could come soon.

The company is also preparing to list American Depositary Shares tied to its common stock in the United States, part of a broader plan to widen its investor base as it sustains its growth.