SoftBank announced first quarter financial results showing net profit of 347.3 billion Japanese yen, exceeding analyst forecasts but representing an 18% decline year-over-year. The company’s investment division recorded a 1.3 trillion yen gain on its Intel holdings, reflecting a roughly 400% surge in Intel shares over the preceding 12 months. SoftBank had made a $2 billion investment in the chipmaker the prior year.
The Vision Funds segment, which manages the company’s portfolio across multiple high-profile companies including OpenAI and ByteDance, generated a $1.7 billion gain in value during the quarter. This increase was primarily attributable to a $2.2 billion appreciation in SoftBank’s stake in ByteDance, offsetting losses in other holdings such as PayPay. The Vision Funds segment posted profit of 5.4 billion yen, a significant decline from the 451.4 billion yen recorded in the same quarter a year prior.
Notably, SoftBank reported no gain or loss from its OpenAI investment in the current quarter, contrasting sharply with the prior quarter when the Vision Funds posted a nearly $20 billion gain driven almost entirely by OpenAI valuation increases. The company said it had not identified material changes warranting a revision to OpenAI’s valuation despite competitive pressures in the artificial intelligence sector. SoftBank disclosed that $55 billion of its committed $60 billion investment in OpenAI has been deployed, with the investment expected to yield approximately 13% ownership of the company.
SoftBank’s AI computing segment, encompassing chip companies such as Arm, Graphcore, and Ampere, posted a 200.8 billion yen loss, widening from a 32.4 billion yen loss in the comparable prior-year period. The company attributed the deterioration to elevated research and development expenditures across its portfolio companies. Meanwhile, SoftBank’s stock price declined approximately 34% from its peak in June amid investor concerns regarding the company’s funding capacity and portfolio concentration in Arm and OpenAI.
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