SUMCO (3436): What changed in the 22 business risks, March 2026 vs 2025

Section 3 of 第２ 事業の状況 in SUMCO CORPORATION's annual securities report for its 27th fiscal year, January to December 2025, filed on EDINET on March 26, 2026, is headed 事業等のリスク, business and other risks, and runs from page 22 to page 27 of 140. It has twenty-two numbered items, from (1) 事業環境について, the business environment, to (22) 上記以外のリスクについて, risks other than the above. The 26th report, filed March 27, 2025, printed the same section on pages 22 to 27 of 136, with the same twenty-two headings in the same order. This piece sets the two sections side by side, item by item, to answer the question a reader of last year's section brings to this one: what moved.

At the level of headings, nothing was added, nothing was dropped, nothing was renamed and nothing changed place. The movement is inside the items. Counting full stops after removing whitespace and the heading line, the twenty-two items hold 103 sentences in the 2026 section and 105 in the 2025 section, and 68 of the 103 are character-for-character the same as a sentence under the same heading a year earlier. Six items are unchanged in every sentence: (11) 資金調達について, financing; (15) 情報管理について, information management; (16) 法規制について, laws and regulations; (19) 自然災害、事故等の発生について, natural disasters and accidents; (20) 企業買収について, acquisitions; and (21) 感染症について, infectious disease. Two items have one sentence fewer than before, (3) 他社との競合について, competition, from 4 to 3, and (10) 資産について, assets, from 4 to 3; no item has more.

One substitution runs through the whole section. In the 2025 section the word 当社, the company, stands on its own, not followed by グループ, 27 times, spread over ten items, 8 of them in (3) and 4 in (9) and 4 in (18); all word counts in this piece are taken over the text of the twenty-two numbered items, with the lead-in and the heading lines left out. In the 2026 section it stands on its own 0 times. In 24 of the 27 places the same words now read 当社グループ, the group, and the other 3 were in a sentence of item (3) that is gone; within the numbered items, 当社グループ appears 122 times where it appeared 98, and the lead-in has three more in each year. A second substitution is smaller: the phrase 経営成績、財政状態等, results of operations, financial position and so on, appears 5 times in 2025 and 0 in 2026, replaced each time by 経営成績等. Of the 35 sentences of 2026 that are not sentences of 2025, 17 differ from a 2025 sentence of the same item only by these two substitutions, and in eight items, (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (14), (17) and (22), nothing else changed. The remaining 18 changed sentences sit in seven items: (1), (2), (9), (10), (12), (13) and (18).

The lead-in explains the shorter phrase. It has four sentences in both years and three of them are unchanged: the second, which says that the degree of likelihood and the timing of a risk materialising are not described where they are difficult to foresee reasonably; the third, which says the list is not exhaustive and that risks other than those listed exist; and the fourth, which dates forward-looking matters 当連結会計年度末現在, as of the end of the consolidated fiscal year, in both years. The first sentence of 2026 adds a parenthesis after 財政状態、経営成績及びキャッシュ・フローの状況: (以下、「経営成績等」という。), hereafter 経営成績等. The 2025 lead-in has the same sentence without the parenthesis; in that year the parenthesis stood at the head of section 4, the analysis of financial position and results, on page 28, where it also stands in 2026.

Item (1) 事業環境について has five sentences in both years and three of them changed. The first, which lists the products that use silicon wafers, gains one word at the front of the list: パソコン、スマートフォン、タブレット型端末といった携帯端末、自動車 in 2025 becomes データセンター、パソコン、スマートフォン、タブレット型端末といった携帯端末、自動車 in 2026, data centres before personal computers. The third names geopolitical triggers of recession, and 感染症の流行、ロシアによるウクライナ侵攻や米中摩擦等の地政学的リスク, the pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and US-China friction, becomes 感染症の流行、国家間の地域紛争や米中摩擦等の地政学的リスク, regional conflicts between states. The fourth lists the drivers of medium- to long-term demand: in 2025, データ通信量の増加、生成AI技術の発展、HEV・EVの普及、自動運転の進展、テレワークの定着、デジタルトランスフォーメーション(DX)等の技術革新により; in 2026, データ通信量の増加、生成AI技術の発展、自動運転の進展、デジタルトランスフォーメーション(DX)等の技術革新、HEV/EVの普及による半導体市場の成長により. The spread of teleworking, テレワークの定着, is out of the list, and hybrid and electric vehicles move from the middle of the list to its end as a separate cause. The 2026 list is, word for word, the list in the opening sentence of (2) 目標とする経営指標、中長期的な会社の経営戦略 in section 1 on page 13 of the same report. The opening sentence of that heading in the 2025 report, on page 12, read データ通信量の増加、生成AI技術の発展、HEV・EVの普及、自動運転の進展、デジタルトランスフォーメーション(DX)等の技術革新による半導体市場の成長, the 2025 order with hybrid and electric vehicles in the middle and without テレワークの定着.

Item (2) 当社グループの製品について, the group's products, rewrote the sentence that lists how production capacity could be lost. In 2025 it began なお、上記以外にも and ran through 重大品質クレームの発生による多額の費用・損害賠償の発生, large costs and damages from a serious quality claim; 信用棄損に伴う販売量・シェア低下, lost volume and share from damaged credit; 大規模設備事故、コンピュータウイルス感染等の事由に起因する大規模システム障害等による製造の中断や大幅な遅延等もしくは歩留の低下; 感染症の蔓延, the spread of infectious disease; 製造設備の故障, equipment failure; 原材料の供給不足, shortage of raw materials; and 物流の機能停止, a halt in logistics. In 2026 it begins また and reads 信用棄損に伴う販売量・シェア低下、大規模設備事故やシステム障害等による製造の中断や大幅な遅延・歩留の低下等、もしくは製造設備の故障、物流の機能停止等により. Among the phrases of the 2025 list that are not in the 2026 one are the serious quality claim, the computer-virus cause of a system failure, the spread of infectious disease and the shortage of raw materials. The response sentence that follows keeps its list of measures, CSIRTの設置やファイヤーウォール設置、コンピュータウイルス対策ソフトの定期的な更新、USBメモリー等の持ち込み制限等, and changes only its first word, これに対し to これらに対し.

Item (3) 他社との競合について is the one place where a sentence is gone outright. Its 2025 text ended: また、仮に当社が競争力を強化できた場合であっても、当社の顧客の多くはシリコンウェーハの調達において事業継続の観点から複数のサプライヤーを確保する方針を採用するのが一般的であることから、当社の市場シェアの拡大には限界があります — even if the company strengthens its competitiveness, most of its customers follow a policy of keeping several wafer suppliers for business continuity, so there is a limit to the expansion of its market share. The 2026 item has three sentences, on the character of the wafer market and the scale of competitors, on consolidation among competitors and the consequences of weaker competitiveness, and nothing after. Those three differ from their 2025 counterparts only by 当社 becoming 当社グループ, in 5 places, more substitutions than in any other item; the other 3 of the 8 lone 当社 of this item were in the sentence that is gone.

Item (9) 設備投資について, capital investment, keeps seven sentences: two are unchanged, two change only by 当社 becoming 当社グループ, and three have other revisions. The sentence on the time lag between deciding to add capacity and completing it now opens 逆に, conversely, where it opened また, and the next sentence loses its opening clause: 加えて、最先端の技術に係る設備投資には多額の資金を要しますが, in addition, investment in leading-edge technology requires large sums, is gone, and the sentence begins また、期待された品質・歩留が得られない場合には, with 減損, impairment, now written 減損損失, impairment loss. The sentence on long-term sales contracts loses its dated clause: in 2025 it began さらに、2022年以降、300mm半導体用最先端シリコンウェーハについて製造能力を増強し, since 2022 the group has been adding capacity for leading-edge 300mm wafers, and went on to say that it supplies customers who sign longer contracts at economically rational prices first; in 2026 it begins さらに、経済合理性のある価格と, and the clause about 2022 and the capacity addition is not there. The year 2022 appears once in the 2025 section and not in the 2026 one.

Item (10) 資産について, assets, lost its forward-looking sentence on fixed assets. In 2025 the item opened 当社グループは、シリコンウェーハの工場や製造設備など多くの固定資産を有し、今後も新工場の建設を含む設備投資により保有固定資産が増加することが見込まれます, the group holds many fixed assets and expects them to increase through capital investment including the construction of new plants, and a second sentence said impairment could follow if the investment cannot be recovered. In 2026 the two are one sentence, 当社グループは、シリコンウェーハの工場や製造設備など多くの固定資産を有しており、かかる固定資産又は資産グループへの投資額を回収できない可能性がある場合には, and the clause about new plants and increasing fixed assets is not in it. The word 新工場 appears in the 2026 report on page 13, in section 1 (3) 経営環境及び対処すべき課題, in the phrase 新工場の戦力化と既存工場の製造設備の高度化, bringing the new plant up to strength and upgrading the equipment of existing plants. The other two sentences of the item, on the indicators of impairment and on inventory write-downs, differ only by 当社 becoming 当社グループ.

Item (12) 技術及び研究開発について, technology and research and development, renamed its product. The 2025 section calls the group's focus 300mm半導体用最先端シリコンウェーハ, leading-edge 300mm silicon wafers for semiconductors, 3 times, twice in this item and once in (9). The 2026 section calls it 300mm最先端半導体用高精度ウェーハ, high-precision 300mm wafers for leading-edge semiconductors, 2 times, both in this item, and the 2025 name does not appear in it. The 2026 name is the one that １ 設備投資等の概要 in 第３ 設備の状況 already used in both years: the line その主なものは、300mm最先端半導体用高精度ウェーハの増強投資によるものです stands on page 33 of the 2025 report and page 33 of the 2026 report. Two smaller changes in the item: 当社グループの収益に悪影響を及ぼす可能性, an adverse effect on the group's earnings, becomes 当社グループの経営成績等に影響を及ぼす可能性, the phrase the rest of the section uses, and ウェーハ製品をタイムリーに供給する becomes 製品をタイムリーに供給する.

Item (13) 知的財産権について, intellectual property rights, has four sentences and none of them is the same. The word 特許, patent, appears 5 times in the 2025 section and 1 time in the 2026 one, in the phrase 特許権その他の知的財産権 that opens the item; 知的財産, intellectual property, appears 6 times and then 10, heading line excluded in both counts. Where 2025 said the group holds 多数の特許, many patents, 2026 says 多数の知的財産権; where 2025 referred to 当社が認識しない第三者の特許, a third party's patent the company is unaware of, 2026 refers to 当社グループが認識しない第三者の知的財産権; the wording for the possible suit is 損害賠償請求等の訴え where it was 損害賠償等の訴え; and the measures are 他社知的財産の調査 and 他社の知的財産権の侵害を回避する代替技術の開発 where they were 他社の特許調査 and 他社の特許権を回避する代替技術の開発. The consequence clause shortens: 営業、生産、販売面、財政状態を含む当社グループの事業展開、経営成績等, sales, production, marketing and financial position, becomes 生産、販売面を含む当社グループの事業展開、経営成績等.

Item (18) 環境規制等について, environmental regulation, has 当社 becoming 当社グループ in 4 places, and beyond that changed one word and one pointer. The word is カーボンニュートラル, carbon neutrality, which in 2025 stood in the phrase カーボンニュートラルの取組み等に関する追加的コスト, additional costs of carbon-neutrality initiatives, and in 2026 is ネットゼロ, net zero. In the text as extracted, カーボンニュートラル appears on four pages of the 2025 report, 13, 16, 18 and 26, and on none of the 2026 report; ネットゼロ appears on four pages of the 2026 report, 13, 16, 18 and 26, and on none of the 2025 report. The pointer is the cross-reference in the next sentence: 2025 sent the reader to 「１．経営方針、経営環境及び対処すべき課題等 (2) 目標とする経営指標、中長期的な会社の経営戦略」, 2026 sends the reader to 「１．経営方針、経営環境及び対処すべき課題等 (3) 経営環境及び対処すべき課題」. The paragraph it describes, which begins 加えて、当社グループは and names マテリアリティ(重要課題), stands under heading (3) in both years, on page 13 of each report, and in it 女性活躍推進やカーボンニュートラル、人材育成 of 2025 reads 女性活躍推進やネットゼロ、人材育成 in 2026.

The rest of the section is still. Items (11), (15), (16), (19), (20) and (21) are identical to the character, 6, 9, 3, 5, 2 and 4 sentences: the financial covenants and floating-rate borrowing of overseas subsidiaries in (11), the two paragraphs on confidential information and on information systems in (15), the BCP, the twice-yearly 生産BCM推進会議 and the BSC(Business Security Committee) in (19), and the teleworking, vaccination and shift adjustments of (21). That item is the one place where テレワーク remains in the 2026 section; in 2025 the word was in (1) as well. Items (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (14), (17) and (22) are the same text with 当社 read as 当社グループ or 経営成績、財政状態等 read as 経営成績等, and the six numbered contingencies ① to ⑥ of item (22), from business restructuring to internal control, are the same in both years.

The answer to the three-part question, then. New headings: none; the twenty-two of 2026 are the twenty-two of 2025. Headings gone: none. Order: unchanged, and the section starts on page 22 and ends on page 27 in both years, in a report that has grown from 136 pages to 140. Below the headings, 35 of the 103 sentences of 2026 are not sentences of 2025; 17 of those are the company becoming the group or 財政状態 leaving a stock phrase, and 18 are changes of substance in seven items. The deleted text is a whole sentence on the limit to market share in (3), a clause on capacity added since 2022 in (9), and a clause expecting more fixed assets and new plants in (10), where two sentences became one. The wording changes are データセンター at the head of the product list in (1), 国家間の地域紛争 replacing ロシアによるウクライナ侵攻 in (1), 300mm最先端半導体用高精度ウェーハ replacing 300mm半導体用最先端シリコンウェーハ in (12), 特許 giving way to 知的財産 in four places in (13), where 知的財産 was already in use, and ネットゼロ replacing カーボンニュートラル in (18).

Method. The desk located the two annual securities reports in the EDINET document-list API for March 26, 2026 and March 27, 2025, retrieved the PDFs through the same API, and read pages 22 to 27 of the 27th report (S100XRR5, 140 pages) and pages 22 to 27 of the 26th (S100VFYA, 136 pages) with pdfplumber, cutting each section from the line carrying 【事業等のリスク】 to the line carrying 【経営者による財政状態. Sentences were compared after removing whitespace, with the item heading removed, and counted by the full stop 。, except that the full stop inside the parenthesis (以下、「経営成績等」という。) was not treated as a sentence end; a sentence is called identical when its whitespace-free text appears under the same item in the other year, and called a substitution-only change when it matches a 2025 sentence after 当社 is read as 当社グループ and 経営成績、財政状態等 as 経営成績等. Word counts are counts of the string in the whitespace-free text of the twenty-two numbered items, with the lead-in and the heading lines left out; a lone 当社 is counted as replaced when the six characters that follow it, with 当社グループ in its place, occur in the 2026 text. Pages 12, 13, 28 and 33 of the 26th report and pages 13, 28 and 33 of the 27th were read for the lines quoted outside the section, and the page lists for カーボンニュートラル and ネットゼロ come from the same extraction run over every page of each report. All counts in this piece are the desk's, and no figure here is a yen amount.