Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., speaks at the SoftBank World event in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SoftBank Group on Thursday reported fiscal first-quarter profit that topped expectations, driven by gains in its Vision Fund tech investment arm.
The Japanese giant reported 421.8 billion yen ($2.87 billion) in the quarter ended June, versus 127.6 billion yen expected, according to LSEG consensus estimates. It is the second straight quarter of profit for SoftBank. The company reported a 174.28 billion yen loss in the same period last year.
In the fiscal first quarter, SoftBank said the value of its Vision Funds rose $4.8 billion. It is the biggest gain in value for the Vision Fund since the June quarter of 2021.
Profit for the Vision Funds segment, which takes into account other factors like expenses, hit 451.4 billion yen in the quarter, versus a loss in the same period last year.
SoftBank has been on spending spree related to AI. The Japanese giant is leading a $40 billion funding round into ChatGPT developer OpenAI and it is currently waiting for its $6.5 proposed acquisition of AI chip firm Ampere Computing to close.
For OpenAI, SoftBank said that an initial $10 billion has been made by SoftBank and other investors. The remaining $30 billion funding will take place by December.
The Vision Fund performance will be welcomed by investors hoping to see those big AI bets start to pay off.
On Thursday, ahead of earnings, SoftBank Group shares hit a record high. The stock is up more than 36% this year, while the company has added nearly $37 billion to its market capitalization.
SoftBank said that the rise of the value of the Vision Fund was helped by gains at public companies such as ride-hailing firm Grab, as well as Indian food delivery firm Swiggy. The performance was also aided by private investments in some of firms in India in which the fund has a position.
Meanwhile, SoftBank is a key company in the massive $500 billion Stargate project in the U.S. that aims to build data centers and AI infrastructure in the country. Investors are waiting for details on how SoftBank plans to fund this spending.
In May, SoftBank posted its first annual profit in four years for the fiscal year ended March, helped by gains in SoftBank’s older investments in Alibaba, T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom.
In the June quarter, SoftBank reported a 256.55 billion yen investment loss for its other holdings, which weighed on the group’s overall profit. The Japanese firm said it posted an investment loss on the sale of shares of T-Mobile and Alibaba, which was partially offset by a gain on shares of semiconductor giant Nvidia.
SoftBank said on Thursday that it sold 13 million shares of T-Mobile in August for $3 billion.
Meanwhile Arm, the chip designer that is majority-owned by SoftBank, contributed a 8.66 billion yen loss to the Japanese company. SoftBank attributed this to increase research and development expenses, which led to investments growing faster than revenues.