SoftBank said operating profits surged 71% in its most recent fiscal quarter, and trumpeted a turnaround at Sprint as a contributor to the company’s strong results.
“Sprint is no longer the bottleneck of SoftBank,” SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son told investors, according to analyst Jennifer Fritzsche of Wells Fargo. Although Sprint is not yet profitable, the company has narrowed its losses and is now growing both its revenue and its subscriber base.
Son also spoke about revisiting the idea of a Sprint merger with T-Mobile US, a SoftBank plan that did not succeed two years ago when Son first broached the topic with U.S. antitrust regulators. With a new administration now in place, Son said the idea is still out there, but might look a little different from a financial perspective.
Sprint might not be the buyer if it ends up merging with another company. According to Fritzsche, Son said Sprint could be either the seller or the buyer and that the partner might be T-Mobile US or another company. Son said SoftBank now has lots of options, including continued growth as a standalone company, and he’s open to considering many of them.
ARM acquisition has closed
SoftBank’s most recent quarter is the first to include results from ARM, the British developer of semiconductor cores found inside most of the world’s smartphones. SoftBank closed quickly on its $31 billion purchase of ARM, which is expected to make the Japanese conglomerate a more significant player in the evolving internet of things space. ARM’s low power chip designs are well suited for connected devices that need to perform for long periods without recharging their batteries.
ARM remains a fairly independent company and has retained CEO Simon Segars. As part of the deal, SoftBank promised to double ARM’s employee headcount over the next five years.
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