SoftBank shares surge after telecom unit lifts outlook, Arm strength
Shares of SoftBank Group Corp rose more than 10% after telecommunications arm SoftBank Corp raised its full-year profit outlook. Arm Holders Added bullish sentiment towards the group’s exposure to AI.
SoftBank Corp’s revenue for the first nine months of fiscal 2025 rose 8 percent from a year earlier to 5.2 trillion yen; This is a record for that period. Operating income also increased by 8 percent to 884 billion yen.
Reflecting this momentum, the telecommunications subsidiary raised its full-year revenue forecast to 6.95 trillion yen from the previous 6.7 trillion and raised its operating income target to 1.02 trillion yen.
SoftBank Corp said the results underscored steady execution towards its 2025 financial targets, even as it tweaked parts of its consumer business to prioritize long-term profitability over subscriber growth.
Segment revenue rose 6%, while revenues in the consumer business rose a modest 3%, despite smartphone subscribers falling by 100,000 in the third quarter after the company tightened its customer acquisition policy.
The sharp rise in Arm Holdings also provides fresh support for SoftBank Group, given its large stake in the British chip designer, said Andrew Jackson, head of Japan equity strategy at Ortus Advisors.
Arm’s upside comes from increasingly AI-related growth beyond smartphones.
“Our data center royalty revenue is up more than 100% year over year, and within a few years we expect our data center business to be our largest business, larger than mobile,” said ARM CEO Rene Haas. on an earnings call on Wednesday.
The company also aims to supply half of the central processing units used by the world’s largest cloud computing companies, also known as hyperscalers, by the end of the year.
Despite missing Wall Street estimates for licensing revenue, Arm Achieved record quarterly revenue 1.242 billion dollars in the last three months of 2025, driven by the demand for artificial intelligence. That figure beat LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted by analysts’ estimates, which are more consistently accurate.
