SoftBank Earnings Shift AI Focus From OpenAI To Intel And Arm Costs
CNBC reported that SoftBank beat June-quarter profit expectations after a 1.3 trillion yen Intel gain, while OpenAI produced no investment gain and the AI computing segment widened its loss.
SoftBank’s June-quarter profit beat expectations after a 1.3 trillion yen, or $8.2 billion, gain on its Intel stake gave the Japanese group a semiconductor-led lift while OpenAI contributed no investment gain or loss, CNBC reported on 6 August 2026.
Net profit for the fiscal first quarter was 347.3 billion yen, or $2.2 billion, above the 120.23 billion yen expected by analysts in LSEG estimates.
The result was still nearly 18% lower than a year earlier.
The Vision Funds, which hold investments ranging from OpenAI to TikTok owner ByteDance, recorded a $1.7 billion gain in value for the quarter.
A $2.2 billion increase in the value of SoftBank’s ByteDance stake drove the result and helped offset declines in holdings including PayPay.
The Vision Funds segment posted profit of 5.4 billion yen, down from 451.4 billion yen a year earlier.
The mix was a reversal from the previous quarter, when the Vision Funds posted a nearly $20 billion gain that was almost entirely driven by OpenAI.
SoftBank has committed to invest more than $60 billion in OpenAI for an ownership stake of around 13%, the company said in February, and $55 billion has already been invested.
In June, Chief Executive Masayoshi Son told CNBC he did not think SoftBank was overexposed to OpenAI, which he said made up around 20% of the group’s net asset value.
He also described the AI revolution as being 50 times bigger than the dot-com boom.
The computing side of SoftBank’s AI strategy remained costly.
Its AI computing segment, which includes chip companies it owns such as Arm, Graphcore and Ampere, posted a 200.8 billion yen loss, wider than the 32.4 billion yen loss in the same quarter last year.
SoftBank attributed the deterioration to higher research and development costs at those companies.
