Applied Materials Faces Growing China Risk from Domestic Equipment Push

Bualuang Securities says a new angle for KCE shares is the possibility that the selling price increase cycle could extend into 2027, even though the market has already priced in the July increase and another in the fourth quarter of 2026. The key driver is not direct demand for AI circuit boards, but the cost of standard E-glass, the upstream raw material for CCL, which continues to rise after producers gradually shifted capacity to higher-grade materials for AI that offer better returns. Morgan Stanley's price index for standard E-glass fiber rose from 1.0 times in September 2025 to 3.7 times in August 2026 and 4.1 times in September 2026, while KCE's fiberglass purchase price rose from 0.49 US dollars per meter in the second quarter of 2025 to 0.74 US dollars per meter in the second quarter of 2026, an increase of 51% year on year, which is still much smaller than the rise in upstream raw material prices, leaving a risk that cost pressure will feed through further. The research team has not yet included a third price increase in 2027 in its base-case estimates, because the general-grade CCL market is not yet entirely in shortage. It keeps its assumptions for the July and fourth-quarter 2026 price increases, maintains its TRADING BUY rating with a 70 baht target price, and views any additional price increase in 2027 as upside rather than part of the base case. Core profit is expected at 1.44 billion baht in 2026, up 78% year on year, 2.07 billion baht in 2027, up 43.9%, and 2.30 billion baht in 2028, up 11.1%.

Japanese police have arrested a former employee of Asahi Kasei Corp, a major Japanese chemicals company, on suspicion of disclosing confidential information about adhesives used in semiconductor manufacturing to a Chinese company. The suspect is Shoichi Furukawa, 66. Police in Aichi Prefecture did not disclose whether he admits to the allegations. Police said Furukawa had served as head of the production technology department and in other positions before leaving Asahi Kasei in late November 2018, after which he went to work for a company in Nagoya. That company consulted police in August 2024 about a separate suspected case in which Furukawa was involved in an information leak. An examination of several items, including a computer seized during a search of Furukawa's home, confirmed that he took Asahi Kasei trade secrets out of the company. Kyodo News reported that Furukawa is suspected of failing to return a digital storage device containing information about the production of Novacure, a curing agent classified as a trade secret, on or around November 30, 2018, before sending that information by email to a person connected to another company on or around September 13, 2024.