SoftBank posted approximately $34.6 billion in revenue, up 8% year-on-year
In sum – what to know:
Record financial performance – Revenue was up 8% year-on-year to ¥5.2 trillion (~$34.6B) and operating income rose to ¥884 billion (~$5.9B).
Telecom remains a growth platform – CEO Junichi Miyakawa emphasized opportunities in standalone 5G, local 5G, and AI-RAN.
Beyond connectivity – Softbank is moving into AI and cloud infrastructure, including sovereign cloud plans and major GPU investments.
SoftBank Corp. reported a robust performance through the first nine months of fiscal 2025 (April 1 to December 31, 2025), with revenue and profits both hitting new highs and signaling continued strategic evolution of its telecom business.
For the period, SoftBank posted ¥5,195 billion in revenue (approximately $34.6 billion), up 8% year-on-year and the largest figure ever recorded for the first three quarters of a fiscal year. Operating income grew in step, rising 8% to ¥884 billion (around $5.9 billion), while net income attributable to owners climbed 11% to ¥485.5 billion (about $3.2 billion). These results underscore consistent execution toward the company’s full-year goals in a competitive and rapidly evolving telecom landscape.
While every business segment contributed to top-line expansion, a significant cybersecurity incident — a ransomware attack on allied firm ASKUL — reduced SoftBank’s revenues by approximately ¥60 billion, or roughly $400 million. Still, even accounting for this impact, overall performance remained resilient.
Telecom: Beyond subscriber numbers
A key theme from SoftBank’s earnings discussion was the company’s perspective on the future of its telecom operations. While some market observers have questioned whether Japan’s mobile market has entered a maturity plateau, SoftBank’s leadership offered a more nuanced view.
President and CEO Junichi Miyakawa challenged the notion that telecom has limited room to grow. He pointed to emerging technologies — such as standalone (SA) 5G networks and local 5G deployments — as areas where SoftBank can differentiate and expand service offerings beyond traditional connectivity. Miyakawa suggested these technologies will unlock “more” in industrial, enterprise, and services markets.
Rather than viewing telecom as a finite service, SoftBank is positioning its network as a foundation for digital transformation. For example, the company is investing in AI-enabled radio access networks (AI-RAN) and exploring how distributed data centers can deliver edge computing services tied directly to connectivity. To that end, executives confirmed ongoing GPU investments at major facilities such as Sakai and Tomakomai to support anticipated demand for AI workloads tied to its network infrastructure.
Miyakawa’s broader point: SoftBank intends to leverage its telecommunications expertise not just for consumer connectivity but as a platform for deeper B2B engagements across financial, industrial, and enterprise verticals. “We are in a better position in terms of understanding the telecommunications field and… distributed data centers or AI RAN at the base stations…. [T]here are industries welcoming this approach — not from the consumer segment, but we would like to approach… B2B so that we can leverage our strengths,” he said.
Consumer and enterprise business
Within consumer mobility, SoftBank’s smartphone subscriber numbers declined by about 100,000 in the third quarter, a result of a deliberate tightening of acquisition policies aimed at long-term profitability; however, revenue still grew about 3%, and segment operating income rose roughly 6%. This indicates that SoftBank’s strategy to prioritize quality of earnings over blunt volume growth is gaining traction.
On the enterprise front, SoftBank achieved nearly 9% year-on-year revenue growth.
AI, cloud services, and sovereign cloud
The company also highlighted progress in AI and cloud services, including plans for its AI infrastructure team called Infrinia to launch a sovereign cloud offering in April 2026, designed for customers requiring secure, compliant, and scalable infrastructure. This initiative reflects a broader industry move — especially in regulated sectors — to deploy cloud environments that meet local data-sovereignty requirements.
“We are not building mere data centers stacked with GPUs,” said Miyakawa. “Using Infrinia as a weapon for the future, we aim to provide a sovereign cloud that can compete with overseas operators. With this, the foundation for sovereign cloud has finally been established, and as the next-generation social infrastructure provider, we will begin offering cloud services.”
Such developments illustrate SoftBank’s strategic shift: expanding from mobile and fixed-line services into fuller platform offerings, where telecom networks converge with cloud, AI, and enterprise solutions.
Upward revision and optimism
SoftBank’s YTD results put it on pace to meet or exceed its targets for fiscal 2025. Revenue progress reached roughly 78 % of full-year guidance through Q3, while operating income was about 88% of forecast and net income nearly 90%. Based on this momentum, SoftBank reaffirmed — and in cases raised — aspects of its full-year outlook.
