Mitsui Kinzoku to Invest About ¥190 Billion in New Copper Foil Plant in Malaysia
Key Facts
Mitsui Kinzoku decided on November 10, 2026, to build a new copper foil plant in Malaysia, with a total investment of about ¥190 billion, the company said in an announcement of its board decision. The project aims to expand production of VSP and MicroThin copper foil, with operations set to begin gradually from April 2031. The company plans to fund the project with its own funds, borrowings and other financing sources. The decision comes in response to the company’s expectations of expanding demand tied to AI infrastructure and semiconductors. The announcement turns the site plan the company disclosed in August into a defined investment project with a specified cost and implementation schedule.
VSP capacity will be added in two stages, at 600 tons per month in fiscal 2031 and another 600 tons in fiscal 2032. This will bring total production capacity across the company’s sites to 2,600 tons per month in fiscal 2032. For MicroThin, the company plans to add 2 million square meters per month in fiscal 2031 and another 2 million square meters in fiscal 2033. Total capacity for the product across its sites will reach 12 million square meters per month in fiscal 2033. These stages mean it will take years after operations begin to reach the targeted capacity, rather than adding the full increase at once.
The land the company plans to acquire can accommodate capacity of up to 3,600 tons of VSP per month, according to details published about the project. The company is also considering building total capacity of 5,000 tons per month for the product across its sites if the market expands further. That level remains an option tied to market growth and is not part of the specified increases in the schedule for the new plant. The plan therefore indicates room to accommodate further expansion at the site alongside the announced phased increases. The details did not specify when the potential capacity of 5,000 tons per month would be implemented.
The company links demand for VSP to the needs of high-performance communications equipment, including servers, routers and switches. In an August announcement, it said its HVLP5 grade for AI infrastructure had entered mass production and that qualification was progressing at major technology companies. MicroThin is used in semiconductor packaging substrates, optical modules and smartphone motherboards. The company has linked demand for packaging substrates to data centers and memory, while optical module applications include multilayer communications boards. These applications place the new plant’s copper foil in communications and computing supply chains tied to AI.
The company aims to increase MicroThin production before the Malaysian plant begins operating in stages, announcing on October 30 that it had accelerated the product’s expansion schedule. That schedule targets monthly capacity of 5.2 million square meters in the second half of fiscal 2026, then 5.6 million in fiscal 2027 and 6.2 million in fiscal 2028. The company attributed the faster increases to demand for semiconductor packaging substrates used in data centers and memory, as well as optical module applications. These figures relate to the MicroThin capacity expansion schedule announced before the new plant and do not on their own represent the company’s full targeted capacity in 2033. In November 2025, the company also announced an earlier increase in VSP capacity at its Taiwan and Malaysia plants to 1,200 tons per month by September 2028, following a previously announced addition of 360 tons per month.
Mitsui Kinzoku expects operating profit from its copper foil business to reach 3.2 times its fiscal 2025 level by fiscal 2030, then 5.5 times by fiscal 2033. It said the new investment will begin contributing to profit growth from fiscal 2031. The 2030 target comes before the announced phased increases at the plant are complete, while the 2033 target coincides with the aim of reaching total MicroThin capacity of 12 million square meters per month. The company thus links production expansion to expected profitability improvements in its copper foil business. The plant is scheduled to begin phased operations in April 2031, with capacity increases continuing according to the specified schedules through 2033.