Japan FA financial results in Q3 FY’21.3: 60% out of 34 companies decreased sales and profits（1/2）

The 34 leading Japanese FA-related companies have announced their financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2021 (April-December 2020). Due to the impact of COVID-19 spreading, 20 companies accounting for about 60% of the total, lost sales and profits on an ordinary income basis, and 10 companies were in the red. The outlook of the Japanese FA industry remains uncertain. However, the economy is gradually recovering, led by the strong Chinese market. Many companies have revised their full-year earnings forecasts upwards. SEISANZAI Japan will deliver articles about Japan’s FA-related financial results for the fiscal year ending March 2021 in two days, today and April 14th.

Foreign orders pick up

In a period of third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2021, the economy recovered in some regions such as China. On the other hand, the economy remained in a difficult situation since some regions in the world still influenced by COVID-19.

Economic activity was gradually resumed in Japan as well, and there was a movement to pick up after hitting the bottom in the first quarter. However, the infectious disease rapidly re-expanded towards the end of 2020. The economic outlook was uncertain and the economy remained sluggish.

Manufacturing-related companies were reluctant to make capital investment, and orders of machine tools remained weak. Domestic orders fell by 34.8% year-on-year to 228.6 billion yen. Foreign orders picked up in the latter half of 2020, down 14.7% year-on-year to 437.7 billion yen. The biggest driving force is China, which quickly recovered from the COVID-19 recession. The amount of orders received from China increased by 53.1% to 172.4 billion yen.

The second part of this article will be uploaded on April14th.