Insights › Rare-earth magnet supply chain atlas › Shin-Etsu Chemical
Japan
Shin-Etsu Chemical
Sintered NdFeB, marketed as the N Series, and samarium-cobalt magnets, together with rare-earth oxides and compounds and magnet application products such as voice coil motors. End markets include EV and fuel-cell traction motors, electric power steering, industrial servo and linear motors, appliance and compressor motors, and camera and smartphone actuators. The company is vertically integrated from separation and refining through alloy to sintered magnet, in both Japan and Vietnam.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1926 — Established 16 September 1926 as Shin-Etsu Nitrogen Fertilizer, renamed Shin-Etsu Chemical in 1940. The company's own chronology dates its rare-earth magnet development to 1972.
- Headquarters
- Tokyo, Japan
- Ownership
- Listed, TSE: 4063; also listed in Nagoya.
- Revenue
- JPY 2,573.9 billion consolidated net sales
Reported, fiscal year ended 31 March 2026.
Magnets are not broken out. They sit inside the Electronics Materials segment, which reported JPY 1,015.8 billion, but that segment is dominated by semiconductor silicon wafers, photoresists and photomask blanks and is not a usable magnet proxy.
Source
Capacity
Each date below links to the document the figure came from. A capacity figure with no source is not on this page.
| What | Figure | Status | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sintered rare-earth magnets, Shin-Etsu Magnetic Materials Vietnam, Hai Phong — after a doubling announced in 2017 | 2,200 t/yr. This is the most recent company-published figure and it dates from June 2017; treat it as a floor of unknown currency. | Operating | Jun 2017 |
| Rare-earth separation and refining, Hai Phong, Vietnam, operating since 2013 and feeding the adjacent magnet plant | no tonnage published | Operating | Apr 2014 |
| Rare-earth separation and refining by solvent extraction, Takefu Plant, Echizen, Fukui, Japan — which the company describes as the only large-scale separation and refining plant in Japan, in mass production since 1971 | no tonnage published | Operating | Sep 2026 |
| New heavy rare earth separation and refining facility, Fukui, Japan — press-reported and company-acknowledged rather than company-announced | capacity not disclosed. Investment reported at at least JPY 35 billion, of which JPY 17.5 billion is to be covered by Japanese government subsidy. The company said the total is not finalized and declined to give a start date. | Announced | Jun 2026 |
Narrative
Shin-Etsu Chemical, founded in 1926 and listed in Tokyo and Nagoya, makes sintered NdFeB and samarium-cobalt magnets through its Magnetic Materials Division, reported within the Electronics Materials segment. Company materials date its rare-earth magnet development to 1972 and describe the Takefu Plant in Echizen, Fukui as Japan's only large-scale rare-earth separation and refining plant. In Vietnam, Shin-Etsu Magnetic Materials Vietnam has separated and refined rare earths at Hai Phong since 2013 and began sintering magnets there in 2015; a 2017 release put capacity at 2,200 metric tons per year. Press reports in June 2026 described a planned JPY 35 billion rare-earth refinery in Fukui, half covered by government subsidy.
Where public sources disagree
- No magnet-level revenue is published anywhere. Shin-Etsu does not break out rare-earth magnets as a segment or product line. That absence is itself worth noting: the Electronics Materials segment figure is not a magnet number.
- No capacity figure has ever been published for the Takefu magnet plant or for either separation and refining operation.
- Vietnam capacity does not reconcile across releases. The April 2014 release planned 2,000 t/yr in two phases; the June 2017 release states capacity was then 1,100 t/yr before doubling to 2,200 t/yr. The company has published no reconciliation, and no figure since 2017.
- Trade press describes Shin-Etsu as operating two refining facilities in Japan, while the company's own rare-earth site calls Takefu the only large-scale separation and refining plant in the country. The scale qualifier may reconcile them; the two statements are not consistent as written.
- The June 2026 Fukui refinery does not appear as a Shin-Etsu press release. Coverage is from Jiji, Bloomberg, Reuters and Nikkei, with the company confirming the project but declining to give capacity, products or a start date.
Sources
- Consolidated financial results, FY ended 31 March 2026 — Shin-Etsu Chemical (2026-04-28)
- Company history — Shin-Etsu Chemical (accessed 2026-09-18)
- Doubling rare earth magnet capacity in Vietnam — Shin-Etsu Chemical (2017-06-22)
- Construction of a rare earth magnet plant in Hai Phong — Shin-Etsu Chemical (2014-04-21)
- Separation and refining by solvent extraction, Takefu Plant — Shin-Etsu Chemical (accessed 2026-09-18)
- Japan government backs new Shin-Etsu rare earth refinery — Mining Weekly, sourcing Reuters (2026-06-11)
How this page is sourced
Everything here comes from public sources — company filings, annual reports, exchange announcements, government releases and trade press. Every figure is linked to the document it came from and carries the date that document was published, because a capacity number without a date is not a fact, it is a rumor with a decimal point.
What is deliberately absent: material nonpublic information. I have spent more than two decades in this industry and a good deal of what I know about these companies I learned under NDA. Those obligations do not expire and they do not bend for a website. Nothing I have been told in confidence appears here in any form, and nothing on this page — or missing from it — should be read as a signal about what I know privately. I hold NDAs absolutely. It is the reason clients tell me things.
Judgment is the other thing left out on purpose. This page reports what has been published and who published it. Whether a target is credible, whether a ramp will hold, whether a capacity figure survives contact with the plant behind it — that is the work I do for clients, and it does not belong in a free reference page.
Where public sources disagree, I say so rather than picking a winner. Where a figure has not been published, the field says so rather than carrying an estimate. An empty field is information too.
Public filings tell you what a company has said. Whether it holds up is a different question, and the one I get hired to answer.
Get in touch← Back to Shin-Etsu Chemical in the atlas · the full supply chain atlas