SoftBank triples profits, credits OpenAI stake

SoftBank’s quarterly profits have more than tripled, on account of a US$25bn surge in the value of its stake in OpenAI.

The technology investor has reported its net profit had more than tripled to ¥1.83 trillion ($11.60 billion) in the January-March quarter. This very much surpasses analyst expectations of the company, with the Group crediting its OpenAI stake as vital to its value gains.

CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said SoftBank’s annual profit of 5 trillion yen was the highest ever by a Japanese company, Reuters reported.

SoftBank’s Vision Funds, which holds SoftBank’s 13% stake in OpenAI, made gains on investments of ¥3.1 trillion in the fourth quarter. SoftBank Group has invested billions into OpenAI through SoftBank Vision Fund since September 2024 to support its continued growth.

The initial investment was made at a valuation of $150 billion in 2024. Last month, OpenAI closed a record funding round of up to $122 billion that included SoftBank, valuing the company at $852 billion.

In February of this year, the Group entered into a definitive agreement with the ChatGPT maker to participate in its funding round and make follow-on investments of $30 billion via Vision Fund.

OpenAI is perhaps one of SoftBank’s most ambitious spending programmes yet, with critics questioning the financial pressures the investment could lead to. They have argued that OpenAI no longer has a dominant position among LLM developers, including Alphabet’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, Reuters reported.

“It’s a good thing for the industry that competitors are refining business models and providing new services to new users,” Goto said during an earnings briefing. “Overall, that increases the value of the industry.”

The news also comes as OpenAI plans for public listing as soon as this year, which could free up capital for SoftBank. The Group said it has also sold its stakes in holdings like T-Mobile and Nvidia and arranged a bridge loan agreement totalling $40 billion in March.

It is also heavily investing in other areas of its business, including the creation of a new AI and robotics entity named Roze – which is being developed to build and operate AI data centres using autonomous robots. The company will be listed and is targeting a $100 billion valuation.

Seeking to build a portfolio of robotics firms, SoftBank also acquired the robotics business of ABB in a $5.4 billion deal last year.

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