DIC Corporation reported its consolidated financial results for the nine months ended Sept. 31, 2025.

In the nine months ended Sept. 31, 2025, DIC Corporation’s consolidated net sales declined 2.7%, to ¥785,874 billion ($5.05 billion). Operating income rose 54%, to ¥13.06 billion ($90 million). Operating income rose 18.9% to ¥40,473 ($260 million).

“In the nine months ended September 30, 2025, consolidated net sales slipped 2.7%, to ¥785.9 billion,” DIC reports. “Looking at key global economies in recent months, a slide into recession was avoided thanks to progress in tariff negotiations between various countries and territories and the United States, combined with the implementation of monetary and fiscal policies tailored to local conditions. However, concerns regarding rising prices and a resurgence of trade friction between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) persisted, as a result of which an uncertain outlook lingered for both corporate entities and consumers.

“Against this backdrop, results varied for different products,” DIC adds. “Shipments of jet inks, used in digital printing, and of other high-value added products, including core chemitronics offerings such as epoxy resins and industrial-use adhesive tapes, remained solid, while polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) compounds and other products used in mobility solutions, were steady.

“In contrast, sales of packaging inks, pigments for coatings and for plastics and other mass-market consumer-adjacent products trended downward, owing to rising prices and fears over the economic outlook,” DIC continues. “Operating income advanced 18.9%, to ¥40.5 billion. This was despite the decline in sales and was due mainly to increased shipments of high-value-added products, ongoing across-the-board sales price revisions and exhaustive cost management efforts.

“Among factors behind the operating income gain also was an improvement in the Color & Display segment, underpinned by sales price revisions implemented to boost margins, and by a return to profitability in overseas after an operating loss in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year, thanks to ongoing structural reforms in the pigments business in the United States and Europe, which helped trim costs,” the company notes.

Packaging & Graphic segment sales declined 3.4%, to ¥406 billion ($2.6 billion). Segment operating income declined 8.3%, to ¥21.3 billion ($140 million).

“In the area of packaging inks, used chiefly on packaging for food products, shipments deteriorated in Japan, and in the Americas and Europe—the former due to rising prices, which dampened consumption, and the latter particularly reflecting a fall in Europe, which saw an economic slowdown—but sales were up, bolstered by ongoing efforts to adjust sales prices,” DIC notes. “Shipments and sales prices in Asia and Oceania, and in other regions, were buffeted by flagging market conditions and sales price competition, as a result of which sales waned everywhere except in the PRC, which reported an increase attributable to initiatives aimed at fostering new customers.

“Sales of publication inks, which center on inks for commercial printing and news inks, decreased, with ongoing structural demand declines worldwide and intensifying sales price competition, notably in the Americas and Europe, pushing down shipments dramatically,” DIC adds. “Sales of jet inks, used in digital printing, rose, as shipments remained firm amid burgeoning digitization.”

Color & Display segment sales declined 3.3%, to ¥192.8 billion ($1.2 billion). The segment reported an operating gain of ¥6.9 billion ($44 million), up 7X from the year before.

“Although shipments of pigments for coatings, as well as those for plastics—which together account for a significant share of sales—remained on a downtrend, as the uncertain economic outlook encouraged inventory adjustments by customers, particularly in the United States and Europe, sales of these products expanded, buttressed by ongoing efforts to revise sales prices,” DIC notes.