¥10 Billion to Expand Fujifilm Data Tape Production Capacity Fivefold
Key Facts
Fujifilm said on October 29, 2026, that it would invest about ¥10 billion at its Kanagawa Plant in Odawara to increase magnetic data tape production capacity to about five times its fiscal 2025 level. The company said the comparison is based on shipments in that fiscal year, establishing the baseline for the targeted increase. The investment will be carried out from fiscal 2026 through fiscal 2028. The funds will go toward expanding manufacturing facilities and increasing staffing, with the aim of strengthening its production structure. The company described it as the largest investment it has made to date in LTO tape production facilities. The decision comes as the company links rising storage demand to the increase in data generated by the rapid spread of generative AI and cloud services.
The increase will focus mainly on the company’s latest tapes, the LTO Ultrium 10 generation. Fujifilm says magnetic data tapes can store large amounts of data for long periods at low cost and can also be physically disconnected from networks. The feature is gaining importance in light of threats such as ransomware, which the company cited among the risks driving interest in this type of storage. It said tape use is expanding among major cloud service providers and data center operators. These uses make tape an option for long-term enterprise archiving, although it differs from storage media designed for rapid access to information. The company says it leads the global magnetic tape market by share and continues to develop its capacity.
Fujifilm’s experience in the field dates to research it began in the 1950s, before launching the LTO Ultrium 1 storage tape in 2000. In 2025, the company introduced an LTO 10 cartridge with a native capacity of 30 terabytes, rising to 75 terabytes with data compression. Its U.S. unit then announced the availability of a cartridge with a native capacity of 40 terabytes in the United States in April 2026, with capacity reaching 100 terabytes after compression. Jiji Press reported that the tape Fujifilm is increasing supply of can store up to 100 terabytes with data compression. These capacities reflect the growing ability of modern cartridges to hold large archives, while their stated use remains data storage rather than rapid processing.
According to a report published by Jiji Press via Nippon.com, Fujifilm plans to increase data storage tape production for the first time in 20 years. The expansion puts the move in the context of the company resuming supply increases after a long period without one, the report said. But tapes process information more slowly than magnetic disks used in hard disk drives and flash memory used in solid-state drives. The agency said low cost and suitability for long-term storage remain among tape’s main characteristics. The ability to physically isolate tapes from networks also allows them to be used in data protection arrangements described by the company. Fujifilm’s investment thus combines increased production capacity for a specific product with meeting enterprise demand related to archiving and protection.
In trading, EL7 data showed Fujifilm shares, listed under the symbol FUJIY, closed at 10.92 on October 29, 2026. The price data did not specify a currency, so the figure alone does not support describing the close in dollar terms. The data provided included neither a comparison with the previous session’s price nor a measure of the share’s movement following the investment announcement. The announced operating plan covers fiscal 2026 to 2028 and includes expanding manufacturing facilities and increasing staffing. The targeted production capacity, according to the company’s clarification, is about five times the shipment capacity recorded in fiscal 2025. The expansion is linked mainly to LTO Ultrium 10 tapes, amid what the company describes as rising demand for data storage.