On February 3, 2025, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attended an event to promote AI for business.
Kim Kyung Hoon | Reuters
SoftBank posted a $2.4 billion gain on its Vision Fund in the December quarter as a higher investment in OpenAI offset losses in some of its other investments.
The Japanese giant said it made a $4.2 billion profit on its investment in OpenAI in the third quarter of its fiscal year ended December, offsetting losses from the decline in the share prices of Coupang and Chinese ride-hailing app Didi.
The company also said investment losses were affected by the decline in the value of the TikTok creator’s ByteDance shares.
As a result, SoftBank Group was able to post a third-quarter net profit of 248.6 billion yen ($1.6 billion), which fell short of analysts’ expectations but recovered from the loss in the same period last year.
Through its Vision Fund, SoftBank is positioning itself at the center of technology development by investing in AI companies it believes will win in this field.
Focus on OpenAI
This includes an investment of more than $30 billion in ChatGPT developer OpenAI as one of its core companies. Softbank owns about 11% of OpenAI.
SoftBank announced that it made a profit of $17 billion from its investment in OpenAI from April to December.
Investors will be watching to see how SoftBank will finance its continued investments, particularly in OpenAI, which is currently not yet profitable.
Japanese investment giants are reducing their stakes in other companies in order to pour money into OpenAI. SoftBank sold all its shares in October. Nvidia The sale was for $5.83 billion, with $12.73 billion worth of T-Mobile stock sold between June and December.
SoftBank also receives loans backed by other holdings, including chip design companies. arm. As the company continues to bet on OpenAI, it faces increased competition from companies such as: google And humanity.
Softbank’s chip business
SoftBank announced Thursday in its earnings report that it has created a new segment called the “AI Computing Segment.” This includes chip designer Arm, as well as two other semiconductor businesses the company has acquired: Graphcore and Ampere.
SoftBank said the division posted a loss of 91.8 billion yen for the nine months through December due to increased headcount and costs related to Ampere-related acquisitions.
Softbank looks like this arm Investments in and other chips are key to activity in areas ranging from robotics to self-driving cars and data centers.
SoftBank shares soared this week on the back of strong results from its communications division and a rise in Arm stock.
