Kioxia Holdings has surpassed Toyota Motor as Japan’s most valuable publicly traded company. The memory chip manufacturer is benefiting from continued investor interest in companies capitalizing on the growth of artificial intelligence.
Kioxia’s stock rose 7.6 percent on Friday, Bloomberg reports. This brought the company’s market value to over 44 trillion yen, equivalent to approximately $274 billion. Toyota closed the same trading day with a market capitalization of 43.8 trillion yen. The calculations are based on the total number of outstanding shares, including treasury shares that companies have repurchased.
The shift at the top of the Japanese stock market reflects strong interest in the semiconductor sector. Manufacturers of chips used in AI data centers are seeing their valuations rise globally due to growing demand for computing power and memory.
For Kioxia, this means an exceptionally strong year on the stock market. Since January, the share price has risen by more than 670 percent. This makes the group one of the best-performing companies within the MSCI World Index.
AI Drives Up Valuations
According to market analyst Shuutarou Yasuda of Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Laboratory, this trend shows how international investors are increasingly focusing their attention on memory chip manufacturers. He cites Kioxia’s rise as symbolic of the shift currently taking place in the stock markets.
Other technology companies are also benefiting from the interest in AI. The list of Japan’s largest publicly traded companies now includes Murata Manufacturing, a supplier of components for AI data centers, and chip testing specialist Advantest.
Earlier this month, Toyota temporarily lost its position as the largest publicly traded company to SoftBank Group. That rise was attributed at the time to enthusiasm surrounding SoftBank’s involvement with OpenAI. SoftBank has since slipped back to fourth place after technology stocks came under pressure due to a broader sell-off in the market.
Origins at Toshiba
Kioxia emerged from Toshiba’s memory chip operations. That division played a key role in the development of NAND flash memory. In 2018, the unit was spun off and sold to an investor group led by Bain Capital. A year later, the company was named Kioxia. The IPO followed about a year and a half ago.
Toyota, on the other hand, has struggled on the stock market. Its stock lost approximately 17 percent of its value this year, lagging behind broader market trends. According to Bloomberg, concerns about tensions in the Middle East and higher oil prices are contributing factors. In addition, the automotive sector faces the challenge of investing in electric vehicles and software technology, which, according to the news agency, is putting pressure on the sector’s growth expectations.