Tokyo Electron forecast rising AI-related investment to drive the wafer fab equipment (WFE) market next fiscal year, targeting double-digit growth.

In its fiscal Q3 2025 (ending 31 December) earnings call, Hiroshi Kawamoto, GM and division officer for finance, noted strong demand for AI semiconductors, driven by advanced logic and high bandwidth memory chips, will push the WFE market to record-high levels.

Kawamoto stated sales for the full year are expected to rise 31 per cent, significantly outperforming the overall market. Capex for fiscal 2025 is forecast to increase 39.6 per cent to JPY170 billion ($1.1 billion), with a focus on evaluation tools for development.

In fiscal 2026, Kawamoto noted GPU and ASIC for AI servers will shift to the 3nm node from the current 4nm node.

Net profit in the October to December period jumped 54.9 per cent year-on-year to JPY157.2 billion, with revenue rising 41.2 per cent to JPY654.5 billion.

Sales to China increased 28.6 per cent to JPY279.4 billion, accounting for 42.6 per cent of total revenue, down from 46.9 per cent a year earlier. Shipments to South Korea nearly doubled to JPY114.5 billion. Domestic sales dipped 21 per cent to JPY45.3 billion.