SoftBank reports first-quarter income slide, gain on Intel stake

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TOKYO, Aug 6 : Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group booked an 18 per cent fall in first-quarter net income to 347.3 billion yen ($2.20 billion), the company said on Thursday. 

That beat a forecast of 148.4 billion yen by four analysts surveyed by LSEG. 

The fall follows record annual earnings for SoftBank, powered by the rising value of its stake in OpenAI. SoftBank booked net income of more than 5 trillion yen in the year ended March 2026.

SoftBank made an investment gain of 1.86 trillion yen over the quarter, mostly due to a gain of 1.33 trillion yen on its holding of shares in chipmaker Intel . 

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As OpenAI prepares for an initial public offering that may be held off until next year, SoftBank investors are now focusing on the finances of Masayoshi Son's investment group. 

To fund its spending on OpenAI, SoftBank has sold off assets, including holdings in Nvidia and T-Mobile, and has become more reliant on debt financing.

While SoftBank secured a $40 billion bridging loan to cover its investment commitments in 2026, the facility will expire in March 2027, at which point SoftBank will have to pay it back or refinance.

In the second half of 2026, SoftBank has committed to investing a further $20 billion in OpenAI as well as $5.4 billion to acquire ABB's robotics business and $3.1 billion to acquire digital infrastructure investor DigitalBridge.

($1 = 157.8000 yen)

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