SoftBank, which owns around 83% of Sprint, announced their earnings for their second fiscal quarter of the year. They saw a 6.8% increase in operating profit, bringing in 335 billion yen in the quarter. This is thanks to the domestic telecommunications business that has been a cash cow for them recently. Analysts had estimated that SoftBank would report about 287 billion yen in operating profit for the quarter, it’s always good to exceed the analysts estimates and expectations. Sprint did help out SoftBank in the quarter, after being a drag on their earnings for a few years, Sprint is beginning to change their tune. With their strong net adds in postpaid subscribers and a low churn rate, Sprint helped the SoftBank group as a whole. SoftBank’s CEO and Sprint Chairman, Masayoshi Son said that “Sprint was a drag on the group’s earnings, but I’m confident that it will be the biggest contributor to our profit growth.”
On that note, SoftBank is also planning to make large-scale investments in the future using their $100 billion tech fund. This tech fund is being established so that they are able to make investments without growing their debt. Previously, SoftBank would make investments confined to their balance sheet. And by creating this new fund, the company will be “better positioned to leverage the coming opportunities.” Son’s company already has stakes in Alibaba as well as Sprint, and they recently just bought ARM Holdings, which was the most valuable technology company in Britain. Speaking to investors, Son noted that this tech fund would exceed “several tens of billions of yen”.
SoftBank started out as a wireless carrier in Japan, but has quickly become a rather diverse company. Masayoshi Son has had ambitions of creating the largest wireless operator in the world. That’s one of the reasons why he bought Sprint in 2013. Shortly after that, he planned to buy T-Mobile US and merge them together to better compete with Verizon and AT&T. Although the regulators weren’t letting that happen. SoftBank also has a sizable stake in Alibaba, and has just recently bought ARM Holdings. So they effectively have their hands in all types of businesses. It’ll be interesting to see what they pick up next, in this tech fund.