Kioxia Holdings became the first stock in Japanese history to see daily trading volume exceed 1 trillion yen for two consecutive days, driven by an artificial intelligence-fueled memory supercycle and the prospect of its first dividend since listing.
"If I had to choose between share buybacks and dividends, I would lean towards dividends. We are discussing a policy of stable dividends," Yoshihiko Kawamura, Kioxia's chief financial officer, said on April 8.
Trading volume reached 1.36 trillion yen on April 8 and 1.29 trillion yen on April 9. The stock has gained 2.6 times year-to-date and is up 6.3 times over the full 2025 fiscal year. The company expects net profit to reach as high as 519.7 billion yen for the year ending March, with analysts forecasting a jump to 2.4 trillion yen by fiscal 2027.
The surge in trading and the potential for a dividend, expected to be detailed in June, marks a turning point for the NAND inventor as its retained earnings turn positive. The activity reflects a market battle between investors betting on sustained AI demand and short-sellers cautious of the stock's sharp rally.
Kioxia, the world's third-largest NAND manufacturer with about a 15 percent market share, is benefiting from what its finance chief calls a "seller's market." The company is negotiating long-term contracts with cloud service providers extending to 2029, capitalizing on tight supply for memory chips essential for AI servers. Its primary competitors are Samsung, with a 35 percent share, and SK Hynix, with a 22 percent share, according to data from TrendForce and Omdia.
Despite the strong demand, Kioxia is taking a measured approach to expansion. It plans to invest around 400 billion yen in capital expenditures over the next year, a 40 percent increase but still below its peak spending in 2023. The investment will focus on upgrading existing production lines rather than building new capacity, a strategy that should help maintain the current supply-demand imbalance.
The stock's dramatic price movement has attracted significant interest from both retail and institutional investors. The number of shares sold short doubled in the week leading up to April 3, representing an estimated 500 to 600 billion yen in bearish bets. This clash between bulls and bears has fueled the record-breaking trading volumes, with retail investors now accounting for more than half of the company's share ownership following sell-downs by former parent Toshiba and private equity firm Bain Capital.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
