SoftBank Group’s telecommunications arm SoftBank raised its full-year profit forecast, causing its stock price to soar more than 10% and sparking optimism. arm holdings The group’s bullish sentiment on exposure to artificial intelligence increased further.
SoftBank’s sales for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 increased 8% year-on-year to 5.2 trillion yen, a record for the same period, and operating profit also increased 8% to 884 billion yen.
Reflecting this momentum, the telecommunications subsidiary has raised its full-year sales forecast from 6.7 trillion yen to 6.95 trillion yen, and also raised its operating profit target to 1.02 trillion yen.
SoftBank Corp. said the results support steady execution toward its fiscal 2025 goals, even as it tweaks parts of its consumer business to prioritize long-term profitability over subscriber growth.
Despite a loss of 100,000 smartphone subscribers in the third quarter as the company tightened its customer acquisition policies, consumer business revenue recorded a modest 3% increase and segment profit rose 6%.
Andrew Jackson, head of Japan equity strategy at Otus Advisors, said Arm Holdings’ surge was also a new boost for SoftBank Group, given its large stake in the British semiconductor design company.
Arm’s turnaround is increasingly being driven by AI-related growth beyond smartphones.
“Our data center royalty revenue is up more than 100% year-over-year, and we expect our data center business to be our largest business, surpassing mobile, in the coming years,” ARM CEO Rene Haas said on an earnings call 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 falling short of Wall Street expectations for licensing revenue, Arm posted record quarterly revenue of $1.242 billion in the final three months of 2025, driven by demand for artificial intelligence. This number beats LSEG SmartEstimates, which emphasize more consistently accurate analyst forecasts.
