For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. This factor can impact your investment portfolio as well as help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also plays a factor in investing, especially with particular tech giants, as well as popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in KLA (KLAC) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to KLAC for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
KLA's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at KLA's main business drivers.
San Jose, CA-based KLA Corporation is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of process diagnostics and control (PDC) equipment and yield management solutions required for the fabrication of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) or chips. The company has a comprehensive portfolio of products addressing each major PDC subsegment—photomask (reticle) inspection, wafer inspection/defect review and metrology.
Reticle production is vital to the semiconductor device formation process. Reticles are used to control the precise deposition of materials onto the wafer, which ultimately change its chemical characteristics, imparting specific functionalities to the ICs thus created. Inspection and metrology tools measure the quality of the reticles, helping to improve reticle production yields. As a result of the broader applicability of semiconductors, shrinking form factors and increasing functionalities of individual chips, reticle design and production are growing in importance. Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor were the largest customers in the last three years, accounting for more than 10% of total sales in each year.
KLA reported revenues of $12.16 billion in fiscal 2025. Product revenues accounted for 78% while the rest came from Service segment.
KLA’s two main product lines are defect inspection and metrology. The company’s defect inspection tools have very broad application in chip, wafer, reticle, storage, compound semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing. Metrology tools are used to gather critical dimension measurements of the wafer and process dimensions such as film thickness, lithography overlay and surface profiling. The company’s metrology products are used in chip, wafer, reticle and solar device manufacturing. KLA also offers other products and services.
In addition to new tools, KLA also offers a comprehensive portfolio of refurbished tools that upgrade and improve yields of existing equipment under the KT-Certified program. Refurbished tools are currently sold to IC, reticle, substrate, MEMS and data storage manufacturers.
Although KLA is a major player in each of its served markets, it faces competition from other large equipment suppliers such as Applied Materials and Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation.
Bottom Line
Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of a few things: research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in KLA a decade ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.
A $1000 investment made in March 2016 would be worth $22,429.75, or a gain of 2,142.97%, as of March 2, 2026, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.
In comparison, the S&P 500's gained 253.12% and the price of gold went up 307.61% over the same time frame.
Looking ahead, analysts are expecting more upside for KLAC.
KLA is benefiting from strong demand for leading-edge logic, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and advanced packaging, which is driving market share growth in the semiconductor industry. Accelerating investment in AI infrastructure bodes well for KLA's prospects. Advanced packaging exceeded $950 million in 2025, reflecting 70% year-over-year growth. KLA now expects mid-to-high teens in calendar 2026. Its robust portfolio and its leadership in process control systems are enabling customers to manage increasing design complexity. The services business is performing well. KLA is well-positioned to capitalize on AI advancements, with AI driving demand for higher-value wafer processing and more complex designs. However, extended U.S. export controls on China and tariff-related uncertainties are concerns.
The stock has jumped 6.77% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 9 higher, for fiscal 2026; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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KLA Corporation (KLAC): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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