A Line That Moves Without a Level

FANUC's 57th annual securities report, for the year to 31 March 2026, gives the year's order book one line of three numbers. Production ¥747,485 million (US$4,563.4 million). Orders received ¥883,467 million (US$5,393.6 million). Sales ¥857,831 million (US$5,237.1 million). Each carries a percentage against the prior year, and the section carries one note, on valuation: production is stated at selling prices. The prior year's yen amounts are in the 56th report — orders ¥796,182 million (US$4,860.7 million) — and the printed 11.0 per cent is 10.96 on those two figures. Production's printed 10.5 is 10.46; sales' 7.6 is 7.62.

The line matters because a builder of order-made capital goods ships out of a backlog, and a backlog obeys an identity: opening balance, plus orders received, less sales, equals closing balance. Four terms. The section prints two. What the two give is the change, not the thing changed. Orders exceeded sales by ¥25,636 million (US$156.51 million), which is 2.99 per cent of sales and a book-to-bill of 1.030 (883,467 ÷ 857,831). That is a direction of travel for a quantity whose level is not on the page.

Run the same subtraction back through the earlier reports and the movement takes shape without the thing that moves. FY2022/3: orders above sales by ¥136,341 million (US$832.36 million). FY2023/3: ¥6,425 million (US$39.22 million). FY2024/3: minus ¥111,035 million (US$677.87 million), a drawdown equal to 14.0 per cent of that year's sales. FY2025/3: minus ¥947 million (US$5.78 million). FY2026/3: plus ¥25,636 million. Five years net, plus ¥56,420 million (US$344.44 million). Book-to-bill by year: 1.186, 1.008, 0.860, 0.999, 1.030. These are subtractions from disclosed totals, not disclosed figures.

The third number on the line travels on its own track. Because production is stated at selling prices it sits on the same scale as sales, and the two have parted. Production less sales: FY2022/3, plus ¥9,014 million (US$55.03 million); FY2023/3, minus ¥5,459 million (US$33.33 million); FY2024/3, minus ¥123,096 million (US$751.50 million); FY2025/3, minus ¥120,433 million (US$735.24 million); FY2026/3, minus ¥110,346 million (US$673.66 million). Service division sales in the latest year were ¥141,143 million (US$861.68 million). The section's only note covers the valuation basis, so the composition of that difference is not derivable from these totals.

Two figures in the accounts sit near the idea of a backlog and are defined as something else. Contract liabilities were ¥35,173 million (US$214.73 million) at 31 March 2026; the note describes them as advances received at the time of order for contracts recognized on customer acceptance, plus prepayments on service contracts. Remaining performance obligations were ¥68,704 million (US$419.44 million) — ¥56,053 million (US$342.20 million) within a year, ¥12,651 million (US$77.23 million) beyond — with contracts originally expected to run a year or less outside the figure under the practical expedient. One is cash already in; the other is long contracts only.

Open the rest of the cycle and search for the balance itself. The results release of 24 April 2026 runs 17 pages and carries no order figure; the word appears once, inside the segment note, attached to no number. The Japanese briefing material runs 37 pages, and a text search for 受注残高 and バックログ returns nothing. The English results release, 21 pages, returns nothing for backlog or unfilled. The convocation notice for the 57th annual meeting, 36 pages, returns no hits for 受注. The integrated report is the same in both languages: no 受注 in the Japanese, and in the 55-page English every one of the thirteen instances of order is "in order to". Orders are reported where the securities report reports them, in annual totals.

The one account of how far the ordered work reaches is spoken. On the telephone conference of 24 April 2026, asked why the coming year's plan sits below four times the March-quarter intake, the company said the fourth quarter's orders include some with delivery dates a little further out, so the figure will not simply quadruple. The arithmetic underneath: fourth-quarter orders ¥252.0 billion (US$1,538.5 million); four times that, ¥1,008.0 billion (US$6,153.8 million); against a sales plan of ¥909,600 million (US$5,553.1 million), 9.8 per cent lower. The plan also sits above the four quarters of orders added from the deck's bars — 909,600 less 883,400 is ¥26.2 billion (US$159.95 million), 2.9 per cent of the plan — and those bars are rounded labels, so that gap is good to a few hundred million yen.

The briefing deck splits what the annual line does not. Its five-quarter bars, taken for the four quarters of the year to March 2026, come to FA ¥229.6 billion (US$1,401.7 million), Robot ¥381.8 billion (US$2,330.9 million), Robomachine ¥133.3 billion (US$813.80 million) and Service ¥138.7 billion (US$846.76 million) — ¥883.4 billion (US$5,393.2 million) in total, ¥67 million (US$0.41 million) below the securities report's annual figure. The same bars added by region come to ¥883.6 billion (US$5,394.4 million): ¥133 million (US$0.81 million) above the annual figure, and ¥200 million (US$1.22 million) above the divisional sum. The labels are printed to hundreds of millions, so both sums carry a rounding the annual line does not.

Sales by region, from the related information note, with shares of the total computed from the disclosed amounts: Japan ¥110,782 million (US$676.32 million), 12.9 per cent; the Americas ¥232,154 million (US$1,417.3 million), 27.1 per cent, of which the United States ¥186,994 million (US$1,141.6 million); Europe ¥152,371 million (US$930.23 million), 17.8 per cent; Asia ¥352,599 million (US$2,152.6 million), 41.1 per cent, of which China ¥228,376 million (US$1,394.2 million), 26.6 per cent; other regions ¥9,925 million (US$60.59 million), 1.2 per cent. The five add to ¥857,831 million exactly. The basis is in the note: net sales are broken down by the country or region where customers are located.

Put the two together and every region gets a book-to-bill. Orders, four quarters summed: Japan ¥117.4 billion (US$716.73 million); the Americas ¥234.2 billion (US$1,429.8 million); Europe ¥148.0 billion (US$903.54 million); China ¥246.2 billion (US$1,503.1 million); Asia (Excluding China) ¥127.9 billion (US$780.83 million); the slide's ROW line ¥9.9 billion (US$60.44 million). Divided by the year's regional sales — Asia excluding China taken as ¥352,599 million less ¥228,376 million — the ratios are 1.060, 1.009, 0.971, 1.078, 1.030 and 0.997. Two cautions on that arithmetic: the numerators are rounded bar labels, and the orders slide carries no basis note, while the sales table's basis is customer location.

One line inside the China figure is a related party. Sales to SHANGHAI-FANUC Robotics, a Shanghai company 50.0 per cent held directly and carried by the equity method, were ¥89,639 million (US$547.25 million), with a receivable of ¥17,008 million (US$103.83 million) at year end. That is 39.25 per cent of the China line and 10.45 per cent of consolidated sales, printed as 10.4. The 10 per cent threshold governs whether the line appears at all, which makes the series discontinuous: ¥111,389 million (US$680.03 million) in FY2023/3, ¥87,454 million (US$533.91 million) in FY2024/3, then a year bounded only from above at ¥79,713 million (US$486.65 million), then ¥89,639 million.

What none of this separates is why. The management discussion gives demand by region and customer industry: machine tools weak in Europe, carried in Japan by exports and strong in China; automotive robots in Japan not recovering while China's EV-related and general industrial demand rose sharply. Volume, price and translation are not split out. On currency, the accounting policy states that overseas subsidiaries' income and expenses are translated at average rates; the results release states next year's assumptions of ¥150 to the dollar and ¥170 to the euro, and the realized average for the year just closed is not in that release. China's move, ¥186,619 million (US$1,139.3 million) to ¥228,376 million, 22.4 per cent on those two figures, stays one number.

By division, the year reversed the one before it. Robot sales ¥378,610 million (US$2,311.4 million), up 14.9 per cent, after a 13.5 per cent fall to ¥329,566 million (US$2,012.0 million). Robomachine ¥129,600 million (US$791.21 million), down 5.8 per cent, after a 33.1 per cent rise to ¥137,588 million (US$839.98 million). FA ¥208,478 million (US$1,272.8 million) and Service ¥141,143 million complete the ¥857,831 million, and the four add exactly. Divisional profit is not part of this framework: the group reports a single segment, on the stated ground that every product uses its CNCs and servo motors and investment is decided for the whole.

The regional buckets are not the same from table to table. Sales come in five regions; property, plant and equipment comes in three — Japan ¥465,016 million (US$2,838.9 million), Europe ¥69,463 million (US$424.07 million), other regions ¥56,937 million (US$347.60 million), total ¥591,416 million (US$3,610.6 million), Japan at 78.63 per cent on those two figures. Recovering the Americas by subtraction does not work: there is no Americas line, and other regions holds the Americas together with Asia. The facilities table lists FANUC America at ¥36,595 million (US$223.41 million) and FANUC Europe at ¥69,866 million (US$426.53 million), the second above the Europe regional total; the report does not explain the difference.

Where each figure lives follows a pattern. The annual orders line is in the securities report. The company's English investor pages carry three categories — financial announcements, a library holding integrated reports and the corporate governance report, and the shareholders' meeting — and the securities report is not among them; the English results release states its scheduled filing date of 22 June 2026. The English deck carries two slides labelled Consolidated Orders by Division and Consolidated Orders by Region, on pages 13 and 14. An English-only reader adding the four bar labels on page 13 arrives at ¥883.4 billion (US$5,393.2 million); the production line and a backlog balance are in none of the English documents opened here.

The register reading those pages is more than half foreign by name. At 31 March 2026, foreign corporations and foreign individuals held 5,046,821 of 9,815,902 units, 51.41 per cent — reproducible only by summing the units before dividing, since adding the printed row percentages gives 51.42. On a share basis, with 793,293 odd-lot shares in the denominator, it is 51.37 per cent. On voting rights, with 492,247 units of treasury stock excluded, 54.13 per cent. One holding, three denominators, a spread of 2.8 points. The register also shows treasury stock at 49,224,704 shares against an actual balance of 49,224,684, a difference of 20.

The names on the register are nominees. The ten largest holders are trust banks, custodians and a depositary: two trust accounts at 23.41 and 10.32 per cent, 33.73 per cent between them, and 48.19 per cent for the ten, on a denominator that excludes treasury stock. A note states that for an asset manager named in a large-shareholding report the company could not confirm the actual number of shares held at the year end, so those shares are not in the table. The exchange's governance report form records foreign ownership in bands, and its top band is 30 per cent or more.

A backlog balance does get published monthly, for a different set of companies. The Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association reported unfilled orders of ¥928,221 million (US$5,666.8 million) at the end of May 2026, 130.2 per cent of a year earlier, with January-to-May orders of ¥851,766 million (US$5,200.0 million), up 32.2 per cent, against sales of ¥680,358 million (US$4,153.6 million), 97.3 per cent of the prior year; for the year to March 2026 the balance was ¥811,605 million (US$4,954.9 million). It is not a stand-in. The association counts machine tools ordered from builders, one step downstream of a control supplier; FANUC's non-Japanese machine-builder customers are outside the survey; the categories do not map to FA, Robot and Robomachine; and an industry total nets one firm's share against another's.

The robot series has the same distance built in. The Japan Robot Association reported calendar-2025 orders of ¥1,045,600 million (US$6,383.4 million), up 25.7 per cent, with exports of ¥789,700 million (US$4,821.1 million), up 32.4 per cent, and domestic shipments of ¥204,100 million (US$1,246.0 million), down 10.8 per cent — a twelve-month period ending three months before FANUC's, service robots excluded. FANUC's Robot division, 44.1 per cent of sales, grew 14.9 per cent over a different twelve months, and that is a sales figure set against the association's orders. Whether FANUC's own robot business sits inside that aggregate cannot be established from the release, which describes its population as surveyed member and non-member companies and does not state how many.

What the year leaves is a direction. Orders ran ¥25,636 million ahead of sales, against a base that is not printed. Four quarterly bars sum to roughly the annual intake, but they are rounded graph labels: the divisional total and the regional total of the same four quarters differ by ¥200 million (US$1.22 million), so the agreement is good to a few hundred million yen and is not a precision figure. And one sentence on a telephone call reports that part of the March quarter's intake is for delivery a little further out. The section runs again with the next annual report, three numbers on one line.

On the arithmetic: yen amounts are converted at ¥163.8 = US$1, the rate on 24 July 2026, applied uniformly to every period here regardless of when the amount arose — no contemporaneous or period-average rate is used, so the dollar figures are a single-rate restatement rather than a translation. Dollar amounts are carried to five significant figures and to no more than two decimal places: ¥883,467 million ÷ 163.8 = US$5,393.6 million; ¥12,651 million ÷ 163.8 = US$77.23 million. Percentages, ratios, multiples, share counts and unit counts are left unconverted.