Kioxia’s AI-Fueled Rally Accelerates as Profit Leaps 48-Fold and 2026 Output Is Already Sold Out
Published on 07/05/2026 at 20:35 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Kioxia’s stock stormed 18.77% higher on Friday to close at €465.00, as investors digested two hard-to-ignore signals: a historic quarterly profit explosion and the revelation that every NAND flash chip the company can make next year has already been snapped up. The Japanese memory manufacturer is poised to report earnings of 869 billion yen for the quarter just ended — a staggering 48-fold jump from a year earlier — while its entire 2026 production capacity is spoken for, driven by insatiable demand from the artificial intelligence sector.
The dual announcements underscore how deeply the AI memory super-cycle has embedded itself in Kioxia’s fortunes. Chief Executive Shunsuke Nakato confirmed that tight supply of NAND flash and SSDs is likely to persist at least through 2027. To manage that scarcity, the company is prioritising long-term strategic partnerships over short-term price chasing, allocating output to customers that offer stable relationships rather than the highest bid. At the same time, Kioxia is ramping up capacity and has begun sampling its next-generation BiCS FLASH, the tenth generation, developed jointly with SanDisk. Mass production of the new chips, optimised for cost, power efficiency and reliability — exactly the traits AI training clusters demand — should start within a year at the Kitakami facility.
The scale of the demand shock is visible across the industry. Nomura Securities dismisses fears of an oversupply glut, noting that new fabrication plants typically require five to ten years of lead time. Meanwhile, high-margin AI chips are crowding out conventional memory components, leaving the market swept clean. Rival Micron Technology is responding with a massive investment in a new plant in Hiroshima, Japan, backed by roughly 1.5 trillion yen in subsidies from the Japanese government. But Micron’s first shipments from that site are not expected before summer 2028 — an eternity in a market where Kioxia’s output is already booked through the end of next year.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Kioxia?
Goldman Sachs has responded by lifting its price target on Kioxia shares while maintaining a Buy rating, expecting NAND prices to keep rising at least until mid-2027. The bank’s confidence echoes the company’s own forecast that demand for memory capacity used in AI inference within data centres will grow at a compound annual rate of more than 20% between 2025 and 2028, and could reach as high as 46% under an optimistic scenario.
Despite Friday’s surge, the stock remains 10.56% below its 52-week high of €519.90, set on 30 June 2026. But it has rocketed 389.47% from a low of €95.00 on 9 March 2026. The shares now trade 91.20% above their 50-day moving average of €243.20, and the relative strength index of 65.5 points to strong but not yet overheated momentum. The downside is the annualised 30-day volatility of 162.9%, a reminder that this rally has made the stock an especially jittery ride.
Kioxia is also laying the groundwork for international expansion. The company is exploring a stock split and plans to list American Depositary Shares on a US exchange at the start of its fiscal year 2027, which begins in April 2027. That move could broaden its investor base, though the final reception will depend on market conditions closer to the date.
Ahead of those developments, Kioxia will present definitive quarterly results on 31 July 2026. The market will be watching to see whether the eye-popping 869 billion yen profit figure materialises as forecast. In the meantime, industry watchers have a busy week: Samsung reports preliminary second-quarter numbers on 7 July (analysts expect around 85 trillion won in operating profit), SK Hynix lists its American depositary receipts on the Nasdaq on 10 July, and Nanya Technology holds an investor conference on the same day to outline its second-half outlook. For Kioxia, however, the story remains one of a company that has effectively sold everything it can make well into next year — and is now betting that the AI boom will keep filling the order book for years to come.
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Kioxia Stock: New Analysis - 5 July
Fresh Kioxia information released. What's the impact for investors? Our latest independent report examines recent figures and market trends.
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