Daily Brief TMT/Internet: Square Enix Holdings, Apple , Micron Technology, Anthropic, Renesas Electronics, NTT (Nippon Telegraph & Telephone), Startia Holdings, Appian Corp and more

• Activist investors 3D Investment Partners and Dalton Investments have both taken meaningful stakes in Square Enix – highlights capital inefficiency and poor margin profile
• Daito Trust sits on over ¥100bn in net cash, an arguably excessive cushion for a mature operator with steady cash flows. Silchester have taken note
• Iriso Electronic and INES both trade below book value. Attractive value plays for small cap funds.

• ndia does not have a top-down method for executing a five year plan like China does
• hina’s supply chain is vast and highly competitive, with India unlikely to replicate its success
• hina wants technology transfer to be one-way gate, inhibiting India’s ability to compete
• atrick Magee studied religion before becoming a financial journalist and eventually writing about Apple’s dependence on China

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• Q325 revenues of $9.3 billion, up 15% QoQ and up 37% YoY and $500 million above the guided midpoint. This represented a new quarterly revenue record for the company
• Micron forecasted current quarter revenues of $10.7 billion, up 15% QoQ, with gross margin of 42%, up 300 basis points sequentially
• HBM negotiations for 2026 supply & pricing still ongoing. Could Micron be holding out for a better deal?

• Micron Results Beat Across the Board, AI Product Mix Drives Gross Margin Upside
• No Evidence Yet of Hyperscaler Pullback, But No Significant Increase in Outlook Either
• Conclusion: AI-Driven Strength Continues, But Divergence Across the Memory Supply Chain Persists

• Anthropic is a reckless and entitled AI start-up, symbolic of a tech industry that is completely out of control and drunk on its own success.

• A judge in California just ruled that they can use copyrighted data without permission to train their models.

• This allows them to make money of other people’s works without compensating them adequately.

• Micron gave up earlier gains despite solid numbers as NAND sluggishness overshadowed DRAM strength 
• This was reflected in Kioxia and Kokusai Electric yesterday, but this may be short lived as scramble for QTR-end gains drives laggards 
• Renesas -12% after management changes direction – negative for the share price yesterday but ultimately the right call. 

• Results and Guidance beat, driven by HBM very fast growth. HBM also generates higher margins and sucks up DRAM capacity, a secondary benefit. 
• HBM is still in year-2 of a 5-year journey. Industry revenues double in 2025 and Micron HBM revenue increase 5x in FY25. Expect Micron HBM to double in FY26. 
• Consensus is a tad too low for FY26, likely 10% too low. Consensus is very low for FY27, likely 25-30% too low. It’s hard for the sell-side to forecast hyper-growth.

• Revenue rose from ¥11.7T to ¥13.7T in 5 years, but profit growth was sluggish, with FY24 profit down 21.8% YoY.
• IT services profit grew at 20.2% CAGR, now ~49% of group EBITDA, driving full buyout of NTT DATA at 20x earnings.
• Buybacks totaled ¥1.8T despite rising debt, suggesting capital prioritization favors EPS optics over long-term balance sheet strength.

• Startia Holdings, Inc. (hereafter, the Company) announced its full-year FY2025/3 results on May 14.
• The Company reported net sales of JPY 22,211 mn (+13.5% YoY), operating profit of JPY 2,737 mn (+19.9% YoY), ordinary profit of JPY 2,784 mn (+23.6% YoY), and net profit of JPY 1,960 mn (+26.8% YoY).
• This surpassed the revised full-year forecast announced at its H1 results announcement. 

• Appian Corporation reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2025, presenting an optimistic yet complex picture of its ongoing performance.
• The company’s cloud subscription revenue demonstrated a significant increase of 15% year-over-year, amounting to $99.8 million.
• Total subscription revenue rose by 14% to $134.4 million, contributing to an overall revenue growth of 11% year-over-year to $166.4 million.