Shares of SoftBank Group Corp jumped over 10% after its telecom arm, SoftBank Corp, raised its full-year profit outlook, while renewed optimism around Arm Holdings added to bullish sentiment toward the group’s artificial intelligence exposure.
Revenue for the first nine months of fiscal 2025 at SoftBank Corp rose 8% from a year earlier to 5.2 trillion yen, a record for the period, while operating income also climbed 8% to 884 billion yen.
Reflecting the momentum, the telecom subsidiary lifted its full-year revenue forecast to 6.95 trillion yen from 6.7 trillion previously, and increased its operating income target to 1.02 trillion yen.
SoftBank Corp said the results underscored steady execution toward its fiscal 2025 goals, even as it fine-tunes parts of its consumer business to prioritize long-term profitability over subscriber growth.
Revenue in the consumer business posted modest gains of 3%, while segment income rose 6%, even as smartphone subscribers fell by 100,000 in the third quarter after the company tightened its customer-acquisition policy.
A sharp rally in Arm Holdings also provided a fresh boost for SoftBank Group, given its large stake in the British chip designer, said Andrew Jackson, head of Japan equity strategy at Ortus Advisors.
Arm’s upside is increasingly driven by AI-linked growth beyond smartphones.
“Our data center royalty revenue has grown more than 100% year-on-year, and we expect in a few years our data center business to be our largest business, larger than mobile,” Rene Haas, CEO of ARM, said in an earnings call on Wednesday.
The company is also aiming to supply half of the central processing units used by the world’s largest cloud computing companies, also known as hyperscalers, by year-end.
Despite missing Wall Street estimates for licensing revenue, Arm posted record quarterly revenue of $1.242 billion for the last three months of 2025, driven by demand for artificial intelligence. That figure beat LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.
