SoftBank Group
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SoftBank Group Corp. (Japanese: ソフトバンクグループ株式会社) is a Japanese multinational holding conglomerate headquartered at the Tokyo Shiodome City Center in Minato, Tokyo. The company was founded by Masayoshi Son on September 3, 1981 in Fukuoka, Japan, originally as a packaged-software distributor, and has since transformed into one of the world's largest technology investors, with holdings across telecommunications, semiconductors, e-commerce, ride-hailing, and artificial intelligence.[1][2]
SoftBank Group's most prominent assets include Arm Holdings, the British semiconductor IP company acquired in 2016 for $32 billion; stakes in dozens of technology companies held through the Vision Fund family of investment vehicles; and a substantial position in OpenAI accumulated through 2025 funding rounds. The group is led by Son as Chairman and CEO, and the parent trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under ticker 9984.[3]
SoftBank is best known for two contrasting narratives. The first is a series of legendary early bets, particularly a $20 million investment in Alibaba in 2000 that grew to a paper value exceeding $100 billion, and a 1996 investment in Yahoo. The second is the volatility of its later investing era: the WeWork debacle, losses on Wirecard and Greensill Capital, and the failed $40 billion sale of Arm to Nvidia. Since 2024 SoftBank has positioned itself as the principal financial backer of the global AI build-out, anchoring the Stargate Initiative and committing tens of billions of dollars to OpenAI.[4][5] By the end of 2025 SoftBank had fully funded a $40 billion investment in OpenAI, completed a $6.5 billion acquisition of US server-chip designer Ampere Computing, and agreed to buy the robotics division of ABB for $5.375 billion, while booking record group profit driven almost entirely by the appreciation of its OpenAI stake.[57][58][59]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Public (Kabushiki gaisha) |
| Industry | Holding company, technology investment, telecommunications |
| Founded | September 3, 1981 in Fukuoka, Japan |
| Founder | Masayoshi Son |
| Headquarters | Tokyo Shiodome City Center, Minato, Tokyo, Japan |
| Key people | Masayoshi Son (Chairman and CEO); Yoshimitsu Goto (CFO) |
| Subsidiaries | Arm Holdings (~90%), SoftBank Corp., Vision Fund, LY Corporation, PayPay, Ampere Computing |
| Stock listing | Tokyo Stock Exchange: 9984 |
| Website | group.softbank |
Son founded the company on September 3, 1981 in Fukuoka, Japan, under the name Nihon SoftBank, distributing packaged personal-computer software to Japanese retailers. He had returned to Japan from California after graduating from UC Berkeley, where he had built and sold a pocket-translator prototype to Sharp Corporation for around $1 million. According to corporate lore, on the day of incorporation Son climbed atop an apple crate in front of two part-time employees and announced that within five years the company would generate $75 million in sales.[1][6] SoftBank acquired Ziff-Davis Publishing's exhibitions division (the COMDEX trade show) in 1995, then purchased Ziff-Davis's publishing assets in 1996 for $2.1 billion.[7]
In early 1996 SoftBank invested approximately $100 million in Yahoo and jointly created Yahoo Japan the same year.[8] In 2000 Son met Jack Ma and committed $20 million to Alibaba within minutes of their first meeting. When Alibaba listed on the NYSE in September 2014 in what was then the largest IPO in history, the SoftBank stake was valued at around $60 billion, and SoftBank later periodically sold tranches to fund investments and repay group debt.[9]
During the dot-com crash of 2000 to 2002, SoftBank's market value collapsed by roughly 99 percent, a paper loss often cited as approximately $70 billion. In 2006 SoftBank acquired Vodafone K.K. (Vodafone Japan) for approximately 1.75 trillion yen (roughly $15 billion), giving it Japan's third-largest mobile carrier and the exclusive Japanese launch partner for Apple's iPhone in 2008.[10] In 2010 Son delivered his "Next 30-Year Vision" presentation, framed as the first installment of a 300-year plan extending to 2310.[11]
In July 2013 SoftBank closed its acquisition of a roughly 78 percent stake in Sprint Corporation for $21.6 billion. Sprint required years of capital injections before merging into T-Mobile US in April 2020, leaving SoftBank with a roughly 24 percent T-Mobile stake.[12][13] On September 5, 2016 SoftBank closed an all-cash acquisition of Arm Holdings plc for 24.3 billion pounds (approximately $32 billion), a 43 percent premium and the largest acquisition of a European technology company in history at that point.[14]
In May 2017 SoftBank held the first close of the Vision Fund, which reached approximately $98.6 billion in committed capital. With roughly $45 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, $15 billion from Abu Dhabi's Mubadala, $28 billion from SoftBank Group, and smaller commitments from Apple, Foxconn, Qualcomm, and Sharp, it was the largest privately raised technology investment fund ever assembled.[15][16] Vision Fund I deployed capital at extraordinary speed across Uber, ByteDance, DoorDash, Coupang, Grab, OYO, WeWork, Slack, Wirecard, and Magic Leap. In October 2019 SoftBank disclosed Vision Fund II with a $108 billion target, though external demand fell short and SoftBank funded most of it from the parent balance sheet.[17]
The period from 2019 through 2022 was marked by setbacks. WeWork pulled its IPO in September 2019. The 2020 collapse of Wirecard cost SoftBank roughly $1 billion, and the 2021 collapse of Greensill Capital cost approximately $3 billion. In May 2020 SoftBank reported a record annual loss of around 961 billion yen (about $9 billion), and Son displayed a cartoon slide of a unicorn falling into a "valley of coronavirus." In fiscal year 2023 SoftBank reported a Vision Fund segment loss of roughly 4.3 trillion yen, a Japanese postwar record for a non-financial company.[18][19]
On September 14, 2023 Arm completed its IPO on the Nasdaq Global Select Market at $51 per share, raising approximately $4.87 billion at a $54 billion fully diluted valuation. SoftBank retained roughly 90 percent of Arm's shares, and Arm's appreciation through 2024 and 2025 became a principal driver of SoftBank Group's net asset value.[20] From late 2024 onward, SoftBank pivoted aggressively toward AI, culminating in early 2025 with a $40 billion-led financing of OpenAI at a $300 billion valuation and the Stargate Initiative, a $500 billion AI infrastructure joint venture announced on January 21, 2025.[21][22] Across the rest of 2025 Son organized SoftBank's strategy around four declared priority areas, AI chips, AI robots, data centers, and energy, and described the combined goal as building toward "artificial superintelligence" (ASI). This program produced a rapid series of deals: the OpenAI commitment was funded in full by late December 2025, Ampere Computing was acquired to add Arm-based server silicon, and the ABB robotics deal extended SoftBank into industrial "Physical AI."[59][60]
Masayoshi Son was born on August 11, 1957 in Tosu, Saga Prefecture, Japan. He is of Korean ethnic background (Zainichi Korean). Son moved to the United States at age 16 and later transferred to UC Berkeley, where he studied economics and computer science and graduated in 1980. While at Berkeley he developed a pocket electronic translator, which he sold to Sharp Corporation for approximately $1 million. He returned to Japan in 1981 and founded SoftBank later that year.[23]
Son's net worth has fluctuated dramatically, ranging from below $10 billion after the dot-com crash and the 2019 to 2020 Vision Fund losses to more than $30 billion in the early 2020s. As of late 2025 Forbes estimated his net worth in the range of $35 billion to $40 billion.[24] Son is widely regarded as one of the most aggressive long-horizon investors in technology, known for a decision-making style centered on direct meetings: many of SoftBank's largest investments, including the original Alibaba check, were initiated within hours of Son's first meeting with the founder. He has publicly described the 2010 "300-year vision" as a literal multi-century framework for SoftBank.[11][25] His most-cited outcomes are the Alibaba and Yahoo wins and the WeWork, Wirecard, and Greensill losses. Financially material was SoftBank's exit from a position in Nvidia, acquired around 2017 for approximately $4 billion and largely sold by Q1 2019 before Nvidia's subsequent multi-trillion-dollar appreciation. SoftBank reportedly began rebuilding a smaller Nvidia position from 2024 onward.[26] That rebuilt position was again unwound in October 2025, when SoftBank sold its entire holding of 32.1 million Nvidia shares for about $5.83 billion to help fund the OpenAI commitment, a move framed by CFO Yoshimitsu Goto as a liquidity decision rather than a judgment on Nvidia's prospects.[61]
The table below summarizes principal disclosed holdings; stakes are approximate, based on filings through 2025.[3][27]
| Holding | Sector | Stake | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arm Holdings | Semiconductor IP | ~90% | Acquired 2016 for $32B; IPO Sept 14 2023 at $54B |
| OpenAI | AI foundation models | ~11% (reported) | $40B committed in 2025, funded in full by Dec 2025 |
| Ampere Computing | Arm-based server CPUs | 100% | Acquired Nov 2025 for $6.5B |
| ByteDance (TikTok parent) | Consumer internet | Minority via Vision Fund | 2018 secondary deals |
| Coupang | E-commerce (Korea) | ~30%+ | NYSE IPO March 2021 |
| Didi Global | Ride-hailing (China) | Minority | Hit by 2021-2022 China crackdown |
| Uber | Ride-hailing | Largely exited | Pre-IPO; sold post-2019 IPO |
| T-Mobile US | Wireless | Reduced 2025 | ~$9B of shares sold June to Sept 2025 |
| LY Corporation | Internet (Yahoo Japan + LINE) | ~64% JV with Naver | TSE 4689 |
| SoftBank Corp. | Telecom (Japan) | ~40% | Separately listed TSE 9434 |
| PayPay | Mobile payments | Majority via SoftBank Corp. | Largest QR-code platform in Japan |
| ABB Robotics | Industrial robots | Pending (announced Oct 2025) | $5.375B; close expected mid-to-late 2026 |
| Other Vision Fund | WeWork, Klarna, OYO, Grab, DoorDash, Slack, Magic Leap | Minority or exited | Various stages |
The SoftBank Vision Fund is a family of late-stage technology investment vehicles comprising Vision Fund 1 (SVF1), Vision Fund 2 (SVF2), and smaller LatAm Funds and Vision Fund 3-style direct AI vehicles.[15][28]
Vision Fund 1 held its first close in May 2017 and reached a final committed size of approximately $98.6 billion. Sovereign wealth dominated the LP roster: roughly $45 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and $15 billion from Abu Dhabi's Mubadala. Apple committed roughly $1 billion, Foxconn about $500 million, with smaller commitments from Qualcomm and Sharp, while SoftBank Group itself committed roughly $28 billion. Approximately $40 billion of external commitments were structured as preferred equity with a 7 percent annual coupon.[15][29] Vision Fund 1's most successful exits include Coupang (March 2021), DoorDash (December 2020), and Slack (acquired by Salesforce 2021); its most damaging positions are WeWork, Wirecard, OYO, and Greensill Capital.[16]
Vision Fund 2 was launched in October 2019 with a $108 billion target. External fundraising fell short after the WeWork failure, and SoftBank funded essentially all of it from its own balance sheet. The vehicle deployed roughly $50 billion across 250+ portfolio companies weighted toward Chinese internet platforms, fintech, and consumer software, and was hurt by the 2021-2022 valuation reset and the Chinese platform crackdown.[17][30] From 2023 onward, SoftBank tilted new AI commitments toward parent-balance-sheet exposures rather than Vision Fund vehicles, and industry coverage has referenced an "AI-pivoted" Vision Fund 3 in private form.[31] The OpenAI investment that dominated SoftBank's 2025 results was carried through Vision Fund 2, and the appreciation of that single position drove SVF2 to a positive cumulative return for the first time. SoftBank reported a Vision Fund segment investment gain of about $46 billion for the fiscal year ended March 2026, with roughly $45 billion of that attributable to the rise in OpenAI's valuation.[62][63]
Arm Holdings is a Cambridge, England-based company that licenses CPU instruction-set architectures and processor IP to nearly every major chipmaker.[14][20]
On July 18, 2016 SoftBank announced an offer for Arm at 17 pounds per share in cash. The deal closed on September 5, 2016 with total consideration of approximately 24.3 billion pounds (about $32 billion), a 43 percent premium. Son's commitment to UK regulators to double Arm's UK headcount within five years was delivered by 2021.[14][32]
In September 2020 SoftBank announced a $40 billion deal to sell Arm to Nvidia, structured primarily in Nvidia stock plus cash. Over the following 17 months the deal encountered escalating regulatory opposition: the US Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint in December 2021, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority opened a Phase 2 review, and the European Commission opened its own investigation. On February 8, 2022 the deal was abandoned, and Nvidia paid a $1.25 billion break fee. SoftBank pivoted to preparing Arm for its own public offering.[33]
Arm priced its IPO on Nasdaq on September 13, 2023 at $51 per share, raising approximately $4.87 billion at a $54 billion fully diluted valuation. SoftBank retained roughly 90 percent of Arm post-IPO, the largest US technology listing of 2023.[20][34] Although Arm's IP is best known as the foundation of nearly every modern smartphone, Arm has expanded into data center servers through Arm Neoverse. Arm-based server cores power AWS Graviton, Microsoft Azure Cobalt, Google Axion, and a growing share of Nvidia Grace AI training systems. SoftBank has framed Arm's data-center expansion as the second leg of a broader AI infrastructure thesis pursued through equity investments in data center operators, OpenAI, and Stargate.[35] In the fiscal year ended March 2026 Arm reported record annual revenue of about $4.92 billion, up roughly 23 percent year on year, with growth led by data-center licensing and royalties.[63] To free up cash for its 2025 AI commitments, SoftBank expanded a margin loan secured against its Arm shares from about $13.5 billion to roughly $20 billion.[61]
On March 19, 2025 SoftBank announced an agreement to acquire Ampere Computing, a Santa Clara, California company that designs Arm-based server processors for high-performance, energy-efficient computing, for $6.5 billion in cash.[58] The transaction cleared US antitrust review in November 2025 and closed on November 25 to 26, 2025, with Ampere's prior backers, the private-equity firm Carlyle (about 60 percent) and Oracle (about 32 percent), selling their stakes; an Arm investment vehicle held the remaining shares. Ampere continues to operate under its own name as a wholly owned SoftBank subsidiary. The acquisition gave SoftBank an in-house server-CPU design capability that complements Arm's IP licensing and aligns with its data-center and AI-chip ambitions.[64][65]
SoftBank Group's relationship with OpenAI began in 2024 and accelerated through major capital commitments in 2025 that made SoftBank the single largest external financial backer of OpenAI.[21][36] In early January 2025 SoftBank led a financing round at a $300 billion valuation with $40 billion of primary capital. SoftBank committed roughly $30 billion, with co-investors including Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive Capital filling the remainder, and the round was structured in tranches tied to OpenAI's corporate restructuring.[21][37] Through 2025 SoftBank participated in additional OpenAI financings, and by late 2025 cumulative committed exposure was widely described as exceeding $30 billion in primary equity, substantially higher when including Stargate-related infrastructure capital. Press estimates placed SoftBank's effective economic share in the high single digits to low double digits.[38]
On January 21, 2025 SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX announced the Stargate Initiative, a US AI infrastructure joint venture targeting $500 billion over four years. The announcement was made at the White House by Donald Trump on his second day in office, with Son, Sam Altman, and Larry Ellison present. Stargate was structured to build hyperscale data center capacity in the US with an initial $100 billion deployment, with SoftBank as chairman entity and OpenAI as operational partner. Initial sites included a multi-gigawatt buildout in Abilene, Texas. Combined with direct OpenAI commitments, Stargate made SoftBank the dominant private financier of the US AI build-out through 2025.[22][39]
On April 1, 2025 SoftBank formally announced the terms of its follow-on OpenAI investment: a commitment of up to $40 billion at a $260 billion pre-money valuation, of which up to $10 billion could be syndicated to co-investors, leaving SoftBank's own effective stake at roughly $30 billion. The investment was structured in two closings. A first closing of $10 billion, of which SoftBank funded about $7.5 billion, was completed in 2025; the second closing of up to $30 billion was made conditional on OpenAI completing a recapitalization of its corporate structure by the end of 2025. If that condition failed, SoftBank's second-closing obligation would have fallen to $10 billion. The securities were convertible preferred shares with a 1x liquidation preference that automatically convert to common stock on an IPO.[57] OpenAI completed its for-profit recapitalization in late October 2025, converting into a public benefit corporation (OpenAI Group) controlled by the OpenAI Foundation, which satisfied SoftBank's condition.[66] SoftBank's board approved the $22.5 billion second installment, and the company wired that final tranche around December 26, 2025, completing the $40 billion total (including roughly $11 billion from co-investors) and lifting SoftBank to a reported ownership stake of about 11 percent, second only to Microsoft among OpenAI's investors.[59][67] To fund the commitment SoftBank drew on several liquidity sources during 2025, including the $5.83 billion Nvidia sale, about $9 billion of T-Mobile share sales between June and September 2025, and the expanded Arm margin loan.[61]
OpenAI's valuation climbed steeply over the same period. A SoftBank-backed secondary share sale completed on October 2, 2025 set the headline valuation at $500 billion, making OpenAI the world's most valuable privately held company, and by early 2026 a further primary round was reported to be in negotiation at a valuation of up to $830 billion.[68] SoftBank's own fiscal-year accounts marked the stake well above the original $260 billion entry price; the company disclosed that, on completion of the follow-on investments, its cumulative outlay on OpenAI would reach $64.6 billion.[63]
Stargate scaled rapidly through 2025. On September 24, 2025 OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced five new US data-center sites, in Shackelford County, Texas; Dona Ana County, New Mexico; Lordstown, Ohio; Milam County, Texas; and an unnamed Midwest location. The additions brought planned capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts and projected investment to more than $400 billion over three years, which the partners described as a clear path toward the full $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment by the end of 2025. The sites were selected from more than 300 proposals across more than 30 states. SoftBank broke ground on the Lordstown site using an advanced data-center design and said it expected the facility to be operational in 2026.[69] In January 2026 OpenAI and SoftBank announced a $1 billion investment in SB Energy, a SoftBank-affiliated renewable-power developer, to supply electricity for Stargate facilities as part of the broader $500 billion program.[70]
SoftBank's AI strategy in 2024 and 2025 has revolved around three pillars: direct exposure to OpenAI, complementary AI-software equity bets, and infrastructure exposure through Arm and Stargate.[40] Direct AI bets reported include positions in Perplexity, Character.AI, Sakana AI in Tokyo, AI search company Cristal AI, and a smaller reported position in Elon Musk's xAI. SoftBank has also committed to a Japan-focused AI program through SoftBank Corp., including investment in domestic Japanese-language large language models and dedicated AI data center capacity in Japan.[41] Son has framed AI in investor communications as "artificial superintelligence," stating in a 2025 keynote that he expected the bulk of SoftBank's value over the following decade to come from AI-related holdings rather than telecom or legacy internet positions.[42]
Through 2025 and into 2026 SoftBank organized its strategy around four declared priority areas, AI chips, AI robots, data centers, and energy, and pursued each through large acquisitions and proposed megaprojects.[59][60]
SoftBank Group Corp. (TSE 9984) owns stakes in several publicly listed entities. Major operating subsidiaries and listed affiliates include SoftBank Corp. (TSE 9434, Japanese mobile, broadband, enterprise IT), Arm Holdings plc (Nasdaq: ARM, ~90% owned), LY Corporation (TSE 4689, Yahoo Japan and LINE in a JV with Naver), PayPay (Japan's largest QR-code payment platform), SoftBank Robotics (maker of Pepper and NAO), and the Vision Fund 1, 2, and LatAm vehicles.[3][43] SoftBank Robotics is the legacy of an earlier push that included the 2012 acquisition of French manufacturer Aldebaran Robotics and the 2014 launch of Pepper, with mass production discontinued in 2021. SoftBank also owned Boston Dynamics from 2017 until selling a controlling 80 percent stake to Hyundai in December 2020.[44] In late 2025 the group added Ampere Computing as a wholly owned semiconductor subsidiary, and the agreed acquisition of ABB's robotics division, expected to close in 2026, would add a large industrial-robotics business operating brands used across automotive and electronics manufacturing.[60][64]
SoftBank's strategy of large concentrated bets has produced multiple high-profile losses and controversies that have shaped public perception of the group.[18][45]
SoftBank invested approximately $18.5 billion into WeWork and affiliates over multiple rounds beginning in 2017. WeWork's planned IPO collapsed in September 2019 after scrutiny of the prospectus revealed governance and financial issues, and the private valuation fell from $47 billion to roughly $8 billion within weeks. SoftBank replaced founder Adam Neumann's leadership and recapitalized the business, but additional capital injections did not stabilize the company. WeWork filed for Chapter 11 on November 6, 2023, and SoftBank wrote down most of the position.[46]
The Vision Fund had taken a roughly $1 billion convertible exposure to German fintech Wirecard in April 2019. In June 2020 Wirecard's auditor confirmed that approximately 1.9 billion euros of cash supposedly held in trustee accounts in Asia did not exist, and Wirecard filed for insolvency days later, costing SoftBank approximately $1 billion.[47] SoftBank also invested approximately $1.5 billion of equity into Greensill Capital, with billions more through Vision Fund deposits in Greensill's funds at Credit Suisse. Greensill collapsed in March 2021, and total SoftBank losses have been estimated at approximately $3 billion.[48]
The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 prompted scrutiny of major foreign partners of the Saudi PIF. Because PIF was the largest LP in Vision Fund 1, SoftBank faced significant pressure. Son condemned the killing in press conferences while reaffirming commitment to Saudi investors and stating that SoftBank would not return PIF capital.[49]
Subsidiary LY Corporation, formed in 2023 from the merger of Yahoo Japan and LINE, disclosed data security incidents in 2023 and 2024 including leakage of personal information for hundreds of thousands of LINE users via a third-party vendor. The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications issued multiple administrative guidance letters in 2024 directing LY Corporation to reduce operational dependence on Naver.[50]
SoftBank's 2025 pivot drew commentary about renewed concentration risk, given that a single position, OpenAI, came to dominate both the Vision Fund's reported gains and the group's net asset value, and that funding the commitment required selling liquid assets such as Nvidia and T-Mobile shares and adding leverage against Arm. In December 2025 several outlets reported that SoftBank was working to assemble the roughly $22.5 billion needed to meet the final OpenAI installment before year-end. The company met the deadline, but the episode underscored the scale of cash demands created by the OpenAI and Stargate commitments relative to SoftBank's holdings of unlisted assets.[74]
SoftBank Group's governance is unusually concentrated for a public company of its size, with Masayoshi Son holding personal control over major capital allocation decisions.[51] Principal corporate officers as of 2025 included Son as Chairman, Representative Director, and CEO; Yoshimitsu Goto as Senior Vice President and CFO; and Junichi Miyakawa as President and CEO of SoftBank Corp.[52] Marcelo Claure, former CEO of Sprint and former COO of SoftBank Group, departed in early 2022 after compensation disputes. Rajeev Misra, the founding head of the Vision Fund, transitioned out of the day-to-day role in 2022 to launch his own vehicle.[53] SoftBank Group Corp. is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (9984) and is a Nikkei 225 constituent. Son personally holds an ownership stake reported in the range of 30 to 35 percent depending on date and pledged shares.[54]
SoftBank Group reports consolidated financial results in Japanese yen on a fiscal year ending March 31. The reporting structure breaks results into segments: Investment Business of Holding Companies (the parent and direct holdings, including Arm), the Vision Fund segment, SoftBank Corp., and Arm. Because the parent's largest assets are publicly traded equities and Vision Fund holdings carried at fair value, period-to-period results are dominated by mark-to-market gains and losses rather than operating cash flows.[55]
In fiscal 2023 the Vision Fund segment reported a record loss of approximately 4.3 trillion yen at peak quarterly impairment. In fiscal 2024 the group returned to profitability, driven by the Arm IPO mark-up, and reporting through 2025 reflected a substantial swing toward AI-driven revaluations. SoftBank's reported net asset value floats in the range of 20 to 35 trillion yen as of 2024 to 2025 (roughly $130 to $250 billion at prevailing exchange rates). Group market capitalization has at times traded at substantial discounts to net asset value, and SoftBank has periodically responded with significant share buyback programs.[56] The "300-year vision" announced by Son in 2010 remains the explicit long-term strategic framework articulated by management.[11]
For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026 (FY2025), SoftBank reported record results driven almost entirely by the appreciation of its OpenAI stake. Net income rose to about 5.00 trillion yen (roughly $33 billion), more than four times the prior year, on net sales of about 7.80 trillion yen. The Vision Fund segment booked an investment gain of about $46 billion, of which roughly $45 billion came from the increase in OpenAI's valuation, pushing Vision Fund 2 to a positive cumulative return. The company reported net asset value of about 40.1 trillion yen at March 31, 2026. Reporting these figures at a May 13, 2026 briefing, management reiterated that AI-related holdings, led by OpenAI and Arm, had become the dominant source of group value.[62][63] Earlier in the year, the fiscal second quarter (ended September 2025) had already shown the shift, with net profit more than doubling to about 2.5 trillion yen, including roughly 2.16 trillion yen of valuation gains tied to OpenAI.[61]
Masayoshi Son, Vision Fund, Arm Holdings, Ampere Computing, OpenAI, Stargate Initiative, SoftBank Robotics, PayPay, LINE Corporation, Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, Mubadala, MGX, AI infrastructure.