SoftBank’s Q1 profit falls 18%, beats expectations with chip boost
The tech investor has booked gains from its bets on Intel, whose shares more than tripled during the quarter
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[TOKYO] SoftBank Group on Thursday (Aug 6) reported a smaller-than-expected decline in quarterly net income, helped by a rally in its chip stock holdings while it awaits further gains from its bets on OpenAI.
The Tokyo-based tech investor’s net income fell 18 per cent to 347.3 billion yen (US$2.2 billion) in its fiscal first quarter after unrealised gains on its bets on chipmakers countered startup valuation declines.
That compares with a market estimate of about 166 billion yen, based on the average of four analysts polled.
OpenAI’s Japanese backer is in the spotlight alongside concerns about climbing debt levels that artificial intelligence service providers are taking on to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centres and other infrastructure.
Founder Masayoshi Son has directed SoftBank’s firepower across the AI spectrum, raising leverage on its balance sheet and exposing the company’s portfolio to the sector’s extreme volatility in hopes of a long-term payoff.
For the three months to June, SoftBank booked gains from its bets on Intel, whose shares more than tripled during the quarter.
That helped compensate for muted gains in the value of OpenAI as well as declines inside the Vision Fund portfolio, including a drop in the share price of newly debuted SoftBank payments app PayPay.
Enthusiasm for AI-related stocks and companies has been uneven in 2026, as US contenders OpenAI and Anthropic continue fundraising at a rapid pace but face increasing competition from more affordable Chinese rivals offering comparable performance.
The two San Francisco companies’ valuations are approaching US$1 trillion each, but their business models are being challenged and questions about the payoff on their large investments persist.
Such concerns are landing squarely on SoftBank, whose total investment in OpenAI is slated to reach close to US$65 billion by October.
The Japanese investor has signed a US$40 billion one-year bridge loan to finance such outlays and has arranged a US$20 billion margin loan backed with its stake in chip designer Arm Holdings.
The company’s stock price has reflected the swings in sentiment around AI.
In June, SoftBank briefly became the most valuable company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, buoyed by enthusiasm around Arm, OpenAI and AI infrastructure investment plans.
It has since given up more than half of its gains in 2026, hurt by newsflow about potential delays to OpenAI’s public offering plans as well as a raft of hacks and other unsanctioned actions by OpenAI and other AI models.
“Debate around frontier-model value has intensified, and OpenAI-related financing remains unresolved,” BTIG analyst Jesse Sobelson wrote in a note ahead of Thursday’s earnings.
Investors had looked forward to OpenAI’s initial public offering as a way to increase visibility into SoftBank’s investment portfolio, which comprises hundreds of unlisted and unprofitable startups in addition to the ChatGPT developer. BLOOMBERG
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