Stocks earning from moving power lines underground,
found across Japan's market.

Moving power lines underground means removing utility poles and burying the lines beneath the road. It keeps fallen poles from blocking roads after earthquakes and typhoons. According to the transport ministry, cities such as London, Paris and Hong Kong have nearly finished this work, while the share is 8% in Tokyo's 23 wards and 6% in Osaka (by road length, end of fiscal 2019).

In June the government adopted its third promotion plan, aiming to complete about 1,000 km in the five years from fiscal 2026. On the roughly 4,700 km with poles along routes linking expressway interchanges with prefectural offices and similar sites, it aims to raise the completed share from 31% to 41%. A Tokyo ordinance took effect on October 31, in principle banning new poles in housing developments within designated areas, reportedly the first such rule in Japan. On November 10, the ministry and local government heads will hold a symposium on the topic.

Still, this is not a new theme, and progress has been slow. The government has worked on it under plans since the mid-1980s, yet about 40 years later a total of 9,975 km was complete at the end of fiscal 2024. That is about 250 km a year, and the new plan's 200 km a year does not exceed that pace. About 40,000 new poles still go up each year. The work costs about ¥530 million per km (the government's unit cost at the end of fiscal 2017), typically split equally among the national government, local governments and line owners. As of March, only 18% of municipalities had a plan.

The work already appears in annual reports. COMSYS Holdings names this construction among the reasons for higher sales at its Nippon COMSYS unit. Nihon Kogyo says its electric line common ducts, the underground ducts and boxes that hold the lines, held firm.

• Source：Third promotion plan adopted (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, June 2, 2026, in Japanese)
• Source：Third promotion plan, full text (MLIT, in Japanese)
• Source：Ordinance on housing developments (Tokyo Metropolitan Government, July 1, 2026, in Japanese)
• Source：Current state of the work (MLIT, in Japanese)
• Source：Outline of the plan (Georhizome, August 10, 2026, in Japanese)
• Source：Policy review (MLIT, in Japanese)
• Source：Cost sharing for common ducts (MLIT, in Japanese)
• Source：History of the work (MLIT Road Bureau document, in Tokyo Metropolitan Government material, in Japanese)
• Source：18% of municipalities have a plan (Jomo Shimbun, September 15, 2026, in Japanese)
• Source：November 10 symposium (GIZUMO, November 1, 2026, in Japanese)

Multiplying the plan's 1,000 km by ¥530 million per km gives about ¥530 billion, or just over ¥100 billion a year (simple arithmetic, excluding work that local governments and power companies do on their own). The sum is large, but many companies share it.

The same work weighs differently at Sumitomo Electric, with ¥5 trillion in sales, and Ito Yogyo, with ¥3.9 billion. So we used Katana to search annual reports for companies with actual orders or sales from this construction or materials that also point to more orders or adoption ahead, then compared the weight of this work with their sales.

One percent of the just over ¥100 billion a year implied by the national plan is about ¥1 billion. We show what share of sales such a job would be. This compares weight only and is not an actual order amount.

Of 20 companies often named as related stocks, 3 use the Japanese term for utility pole removal in their main report sections: Ito Yogyo, Nasu Denki-Tekko and Ohba. The 6 supported on the first question were all outside those 20. Companies that do not mention it may still do the work, and for majors it may simply be too small to report.

Still, the reports do not show that this work moved results at the small companies. No materials maker states sales from it, and Nihon Kogyo and Ito Yogyo both forecast lower profit this year.

If this work moves results anywhere, it is at small materials makers rather than the majors. For those companies, what matters is less the plan's distance than whether product adoption shows up in their results.

• Source：Related stocks list (Yasashii Kabu no Hajimekata, updated November 6, 2026, in Japanese)
• Source：Earnings report for the year to March 2026 (Ito Yogyo, in Japanese)
• Source：First-half results (Nihon Kogyo, October 27, 2026, in Japanese)

Signs of growth show up more in construction figures than in materials. At the three power-group contractors listed here that report underground line work separately, orders rose in the year to March 2026. This work also includes transmission and renewable energy lines, so not all of it is pole removal.

Chudenko's figures come from a category that also includes transmission and substation work.

Meanwhile, only 18% of municipalities have a plan, and projects take years from agreement to completion. The national plan lists cheaper methods such as shallow burial, small boxes and direct cable burial. If they spread, the same budget covers more distance, but sales per km of construction and materials fall.

Contractors see orders first, and small materials makers get their turn if low-cost products are chosen. In the next results, watch whether contractor orders keep rising and whether materials makers report adoption.

• Source：Third promotion plan, full text (MLIT, in Japanese)
• Source：First-half earnings report (Hokkaido Electrical Construction, October 27, 2026, in Japanese)
• Source：First-half earnings report (Chudenko, October 30, 2026, in Japanese)