SoftBank Corp raises full-year profit outlook as AI cloud revenue jumps 37%
SoftBank Corp raised its full-year forecasts on November 9 after reporting record first-half revenue and profit, driven by growth in its enterprise cloud and artificial intelligence business. Revenue for the six months to September 30 rose 11.7 per cent from a year earlier to 3.7987 trillion yen, operating income increased 2.1 per cent to 642.1 billion yen, and net income attributable to shareholders rose 4.5 per cent to 364.5 billion yen. The company now expects full-year revenue of 7.9 trillion yen, up from 7.5 trillion, operating income of 1.16 trillion yen, up from 1.10 trillion, and net income of 610 billion yen, up from 560 billion.
The enterprise business supplied the momentum. Its revenue rose 12 per cent to 538.9 billion yen, with operating income up 20 per cent to 124.8 billion yen, and within it cloud and AI revenue jumped 37 per cent to 163.8 billion yen from 119.8 billion yen a year earlier, about 30 per cent of enterprise revenue. Demand for AI computing infrastructure, cloud services and security drove the increase. Consumer revenue grew 8.6 per cent to 1.6025 trillion yen, and the Hokkaido Tomakomai AI data centre is on course to open during the financial year ending March 2027.
Management attributed the higher outlook to stronger trading across the business and a gain from the sale of preferred equity interests in Energy Global, known as SB Energy. The annual dividend forecast was left unchanged at 8.80 yen per share, including an interim payment of 4.40 yen. Junichi Miyakawa, the president and chief executive, said the company would update its medium-term forecasts when full-year results are announced in May 2027, and it has set longer-term targets of 9.0 trillion yen in revenue and 1.7 trillion yen in operating income by fiscal 2030.
SoftBank's November 9 release confirms the results were announced that day for the six months to September 30, and the figures match across Telecompaper, AsiaToday and other outlets reporting the filing, with revenue of 3.7987 trillion yen, operating income of 642.1 billion yen and net income of 364.5 billion yen appearing identically in each. One outlet rounded net income growth to 5 per cent against 4.5 per cent elsewhere. This is SoftBank Corp, the telecom operator listed in Tokyo, rather than SoftBank Group, the investment holding company, which reports its own quarterly results on November 10.
The briefing also carried an apology. Miyakawa apologised for a ransomware attack in October on IDC Frontier, a cloud subsidiary, and disclosed that reconnaissance attempts against the company's systems had doubled to about 700 million a month. The company gave no further detail in the accounts of the briefing about the extent of any data exposure.
The first half already accounts for close to 60 per cent of the revised annual net profit target, so the second half, and the accounting treatment of completed transactions, will decide whether the raised forecasts are met in full. The Tomakomai data centre opening and the pace of cloud and AI demand will be the clearest markers of whether the growth that lifted the first half can be sustained.