Murata to invest €5.7 billion to double MLCC sales
Japanese component maker Murata plans to invest about JPY 1 trillion (about EUR 5.7 billion) over five years to expand its global production capacity for multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs). The company expects MLCC sales in fiscal 2030 to be at least double those of fiscal 2025.
The investment, spread across fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2030, breaks down into roughly JPY 350 billion for buildings and JPY 650 billion for production equipment, according to a press release from Murata. The money will go towards new production buildings at existing sites in and outside Japan, as well as new equipment, upgrades to existing lines and some land purchases.
Murata says the expansion is aimed at growing demand from data centres in the near term. But the company also says it is building the production base it will need after 2030, when it expects AI to have spread into edge devices, mobility and robotics.
The largest project disclosed so far is in Okayama Prefecture, where Okayama Murata Manufacturing in Setouchi will become the company’s third MLCC production site in Japan, alongside Fukui Murata Manufacturing and Izumo Murata Manufacturing. Murata will put about JPY 150 billion (about EUR 850 million) into two new buildings at the site. One is an MLCC production building, where construction starts in April 2027 and completion is planned for the end of 2028. The other, for MLCC sheets and raw materials, is due in 2030. By then, Murata aims to employ between 1,500 and 2,000 people in Okayama.
Izumo Murata will also build a new plant for electronic components, including MLCCs, in Yasugi, Shimane Prefecture, although neither the timing nor the investment has been decided.
Outside Japan, the plan includes a new production building at Murata Electronics (Thailand), due for completion in 2030, and new equipment and infrastructure in an unused part of an existing building in the Philippines by 2027. Investment amounts for both will be announced later. Murata will also add equipment and capacity at its existing plants in Japan, ASEAN and China on a yearly basis, without disclosing the individual plans.
The new plan builds on a string of MLCC expansions in recent years. New production buildings were completed in Thailand and at Izumo Murata’s Iwami plant in 2023, and at Wuxi Murata Electronics in China in 2024. A new research and development building at Fukui Murata was completed in February 2026, and a leased packaging and shipping facility in India is set to reach full-scale operation in fiscal 2026.
Murata has not said how the remaining roughly JPY 850 billion of the investment will be split between its sites.
