AI screening example · run on October 10, 2026

Companies like Keyence,
across all of Japan.

We picked Keyence as the reference. Katana narrowed 3,826 Japanese stocks to 48 highly profitable, financially strong makers with growing sales. AI then read each annual report and found 8 that sell directly to customers through their own sales force.

Background

Keyence's strength lies in its demand and its systems.

Keyence makes sensors and measuring instruments for factory automation. In the year to March 2026 it posted sales of ¥1,169.3 billion and operating income of ¥595.8 billion, an operating margin of 51%. In a January 2026 report, SBI Securities listed Keyence among physical-AI plays as the sensor maker that lets robots and machines perceive the real world.

Demand is on its side. Teikoku Databank counted 441 bankruptcies caused by labor shortages in Japan in fiscal 2025, a record for the third year running. The fewer people a workplace has, the more work it hands to machines.

But demand is not the whole story. I once had the chance to talk with several people from Keyence, and I felt the company's strength. Talented people were working hard under thoroughly rational systems. One of those systems is direct sales: its own sales force sells straight to customers.

So are there other highly profitable makers whose own sales force sells directly? We searched all of Japan.

01 / Input

The companies we wanted to find.

Reference company: Keyence (6861)

“A manufacturer like Keyence: highly profitable, financially strong and still growing sales, whose own sales force sells its products directly to customers.”

Entered in Japanese; English translation.

For this example, a separate AI prepared the conditions and we added a manufacturing-sector filter; Katana ran the financial screen and filing judgments.

02 / Conditions

The conditions we applied across Japan.

Quantitative

Katana computes its metrics for every company.

Sector: manufacturing (16 TSE manufacturing sectors)
Operating margin ≥ 20% (Keyence: 51.0%)
Equity ratio ≥ 60% (Keyence: 94.6%)
Six-year revenue CAGR ≥ 5% (Keyence: 13.3%)

Qualitative

AI reads each annual report and judges support and counterevidence.

Does the company mainly sell its principal products directly to customer companies through its own or its subsidiaries' sales staff?

Selling mainly through distributors or trading companies, an in-house online store alone, and future plans do not count.

~3,800listed companies

48match the numbers

8AI judged as supported

Katana

read the filings and found 8.

03 / Results

Eight supported. We checked seven against the source.

Of 48 companies, 8 were supported, 26 need review and 14 had counterevidence. Below are the seven supported companies whose sales approach we confirmed in the filing text. Keyence was supported too.

SMC6273 · Machinery

Places its own direct sales staff in more than 80 countries and regions to meet customer needs worldwide.Filing ↗Makes pneumatic and other control equipment for factory automation. Operating margin 22.6%, equity ratio 91.5%. It also works with distributors.
SAMCO6387 · Machinery

Sells its thin-film equipment directly, as a rule without distributors, so its sales and engineering staff follow customers' investment plans firsthand.Filing ↗A maker of thin-film equipment for chips and electronic parts. Its management philosophy states that it adopts direct sales; some overseas sales go through local agents.
Mars Group Holdings6419 · Machinery

Develops, makes, sells and services its products in-house, gathering customer needs through direct sales.Filing ↗Built on amusement-related systems such as prepaid card systems, it feeds customer needs gathered through direct sales into development. Equity ratio 91.0%.
Dexerials4980 · Chemicals

Runs its own sales subsidiaries in the U.S., the Netherlands, China, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore to stay close to customers.Filing ↗An electronic-materials company known for anisotropic conductive film. It does not use the words direct sales, but sells through its own subsidiaries abroad. Operating margin 33.5%.
NISSEI ASB MACHINE6284 · Machinery

Sells its PET bottle molding machines through its own subsidiaries in each region, such as NISSEI ASB GmbH in Europe.Filing ↗A maker of molding machines for PET bottles and other containers that sells through its own subsidiaries in each region (the quote is for Europe).
Hokuryo1384 · Foods

Sells almost all of its eggs directly to its trading partners, without wholesalers.Filing ↗A Hokkaido egg producer. It fits the question, though its business is nothing like Keyence's. Six-year revenue CAGR 9.5%.
Keyence (the reference)6861 · Electric Appliances

Calls its global direct-sales network a strength and links sales and development to plan new products.Filing ↗Keyence was supported too. Operating margin 51.0%, equity ratio 94.6%, six-year revenue CAGR 13.3%.

View detailed results

These results are from October 10, 2026. Qualitative judgments use the filings available at that time, while quantitative screening uses the latest financial data.

04 / Takeaway

Same way of selling, different demand.

Every supported company sells to customers itself. What they sell, and to whom, differs. Only Keyence and SMC sell equipment for factory automation; SBI Securities also lists SMC among physical-AI plays, for pneumatic equipment.

Company	Main products	Op. margin	Revenue 6y CAGR
Keyence	Sensors and measuring instruments for factory automation	51.0%	+13.3%
SMC	Pneumatic equipment for factory automation	22.6%	+8.2%
SAMCO	Manufacturing equipment for chips and electronic parts	25.1%	+11.2%
Dexerials	Electronic materials for smartphones and car displays	33.5%	+12.0%
NISSEI ASB MACHINE	Molding machines for PET bottles and other containers	24.4%	+8.9%
Mars Group Holdings	Systems for amusement venues	27.2%	+6.2%
Hokuryo	Eggs	21.5%	+9.5%

Margins and growth rates do not reveal the difference. Direct sales and high margins are a starting point for finding companies like Keyence, but on their own they also let an egg producer through. To get closer to Keyence, ask not only how a company sells but whether it sits on growing demand such as automation.

The table confirms that Keyence is an excellent company: its 51.0% operating margin stands out even among these seven. But this screen had no condition for cheapness. Keyence's trailing P/E is 32.2 and its P/B 4.13, both far above the medians for all Japanese stocks (13.8 and 1.17).

Investing in an excellent company does not guarantee a profit. A good company and a good investment are different things, and that is what makes investing hard.

Figures are results up to the latest annual report and do not indicate future sales or profit. Trailing P/E and P/B use the fiscal year-end share price; medians cover companies with positive values.

Your stock-picking, handed straight to AI.

Complex theses, your own selection rules. Katana narrows companies with its own metrics, and AI reads annual reports to judge qualitative conditions. The selection you used to do one company at a time, AI now runs across the Japanese market.

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Companies like Keyence,across all of Japan.