Japanese semiconductor maker Kioxia has closed in on Toyota Motor, the second-largest company by market capitalization on the Japanese stock exchange. Toyota, which has held the title of Japan's largest company for more than two decades, already lost its No. 1 spot to SoftBank Group amid the artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom and is now seeing its second-place position threatened.
According to Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 3rd, Kioxia shares rose 7% from the previous day to 83,140 yen on the Tokyo stock market that morning, briefly pushing its market capitalization above 45 trillion yen (about 427 trillion won).
Kioxia, which ranked just 169th by market capitalization in June last year, has seen its stock price surge more than 3,900% over the past year, briefly overtaking Toyota Motor, the symbol of Japanese manufacturing, during intraday trading. Its stock price has gained more than 660% this year. The market capitalization ranking of Japan's listed companies was temporarily reshuffled to SoftBank Group, Kioxia, and Toyota Motor, before Toyota reclaimed second place as Kioxia closed lower at 78,080 yen (about 746,200 won).
Kioxia, whose main business is manufacturing NAND flash long-term memory, has seen its stock surge as demand for NAND flash for AI data center investments increases.
Kioxia's stock rally is attributed to both improved earnings and the effects of its shareholder return policy. The company posted consolidated revenue of 2.3376 trillion yen (about 22.2927 trillion won) and operating profit of 876.2 billion yen (about 8.356 trillion won) for the 2025 fiscal year (April 2025 to March 2026). The figures represent year-on-year increases of 37% and 93.4%, respectively.
Kioxia is also pursuing large-scale investments to meet expanding AI demand. The company plans to invest a total of 2.1 trillion yen (about 20.0268 trillion won) in capital expenditure and research and development (R&D) from April this year through March 2029.
Meanwhile, according to market research firm TrendForce, the combined revenue of the world's top five NAND flash suppliers in the first quarter of this year reached $38.9 billion (about 59 trillion won), an 83.7% increase from the previous quarter. Samsung Electronics ranked first with a 31.6% revenue share, followed by SK hynix with 17.6% including its U.S. subsidiary Solidigm, while Kioxia, Micron, and SanDisk tied for third with a 13.9% share each.
