[Stock Analysis] SoftBank Group (TYO: 9984): Record ¥5 Trillion Profit — What’s Next for Son’s AI Bet?

Hey everyone, Hirokichi here.

Today I’m looking at SoftBank Group Corp (TYO: 9984). For the fiscal year ended March 2026, the company posted a consolidated net profit of over ¥5 trillion — the first time any Japanese company has ever cleared that mark in a single fiscal year. On top of that, SBG just released its Q1 FY2026 earnings (the quarter ended June 30, 2026) on August 6, and the stock has been swinging wildly all year. With OpenAI and Arm sitting at the center of its portfolio, this is a company that’s effectively betting everything on AI under founder Masayoshi Son. Let’s look at the numbers and the strategy behind them.

What Kind of Company Is SoftBank Group?

SoftBank Group Corp (SBG) is not a telecom operator — it’s an investment holding company. Its original domestic telecom business was spun off as a separately listed subsidiary, SoftBank Corp (TYO: 9434 / not the same company as SBG). SBG itself now operates as an investor that builds stakes in other companies.

Its flagship holdings include Arm Holdings, the UK chip design company SBG acquired in 2016, the SoftBank Vision Fund investment vehicles, and a newly created “AI Computing” segment (launched in Q3 FY2025) that consolidates Arm, Graphcore, and Ampere. Since early 2026, SBG’s massive investment in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has become the single biggest driver of both earnings and the stock price.

Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son is also the company’s largest shareholder, holding roughly 30% of shares outstanding. He has repeatedly framed the company’s mission around achieving “ASI” (Artificial Super Intelligence). In short: a company that went from telecom operator, to investment holding company, and is now reinventing itself as an AI conglomerate.

Share Price and Key Metrics

Even over just the past 12 months, the stock ranged from ¥3,555 to ¥7,491 — more than doubling and then giving much of it back, which tells you a lot about how volatile this name has been.

SBG shares closed at ¥5,695 on August 6, 2026, down ¥263 (-4.41%) from the previous day. The stock has been extraordinarily volatile this year — from a 52-week low of ¥3,365 on March 23 to a 52-week high of ¥9,074 on June 2, nearly a 3x swing in just over two months. Market capitalization stands at ¥32.53 trillion.

On valuation, the P/B ratio (price-to-book, how many times book value the stock trades at) is 1.76x, and the forecast dividend yield is just 0.19%. The P/E ratio (how expensive the stock is relative to earnings) isn’t disclosed by the company since it doesn’t issue an earnings forecast, but on a trailing basis it’s roughly 7x. The annual dividend has been held at ¥11 per share for FY2024, FY2025, and is forecast at ¥11 again for FY2026 (year ending March 2027).

One important note: SBG carried out a 1-for-4 stock split effective January 1, 2026. All prices and EPS figures in this article are stated on a post-split basis — keep that in mind if you’re looking at older charts.

It’s also worth understanding SBG’s “NAV discount.” The company discloses a mark-to-market Net Asset Value (NAV) of its holdings, which stood at roughly ¥33.3 trillion as of end-September 2025. Against that, the market cap as of December 22, 2025 was just ¥25.4 trillion — implying a real P/B of only 0.76x. In other words, the stock was trading well below the value of what it owns. That discount narrowed sharply after the stock’s surge from May 2026 onward.

Earnings Check

The chart makes the turnaround obvious: three straight years of losses, a return to profit in FY2025, and then a sharp jump in net profit through FY2026.

As the chart above shows, SBG posted three straight years of net losses from FY2022 through FY2024, driven largely by valuation declines at Vision Fund portfolio companies. The company returned to profit in FY2025, and for FY2026 (April 2025 – March 2026) posted revenue of ¥7.7986 trillion (+7.7% YoY) and net profit attributable to owners of the parent of ¥5.0022 trillion (up 4.3x YoY) — a record by a wide margin. It’s the first time a Japanese company has reported over ¥5 trillion in consolidated net profit for a single fiscal year.

The latest quarter is also worth a look. For Q1 FY2026 (April-June 2026, reported August 6, 2026), revenue came in at ¥2.0195 trillion (+10.9% YoY), pre-tax income at ¥589.1 billion (-14.6% YoY), and quarterly net profit attributable to owners of the parent at ¥347.3 billion (-17.7% YoY). Investment gains totaled ¥1.8594 trillion, including a ¥1.3329 trillion valuation gain on its Intel shares — but profit still declined year-over-year due to the exceptionally high base from the prior-year quarter.

Here’s a summary table of the key figures.

Source: Financial results reports (SoftBank Group Corp IR) and Kabutan earnings data, compiled by Hirokichi.

Growth Strategy Going Forward

Masayoshi Son keeps coming back to one theme: achieving “ASI” (Artificial Super Intelligence). At the company’s annual shareholders meeting on June 24, 2026, he described four focus areas — AI models, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and robotics — as the “four corners” of the Othello board, laying out a strategy to control these core areas through a group of companies and become the world’s leading AI conglomerate.

The clearest symbol of this is the “Stargate” project, a joint effort with OpenAI and Oracle to build massive AI data center infrastructure in the United States. On the OpenAI investment itself, reports indicate SBG committed an additional $30 billion as part of OpenAI’s record fundraising round announced in March 2026, which — once completed — would bring its total commitment to $64.6 billion for roughly a 13% stake. In the most recent quarter (Q1 FY2026), SBG invested a further $10 billion, bringing its cumulative investment to $44.6 billion as of quarter-end.

On the semiconductor side, SBG has bundled Arm together with Graphcore and Ampere into a new “AI Computing” business segment, strengthening its position across AI chips and data center infrastructure.

On shareholder returns, SBG has been running opportunistic share buybacks (roughly ¥330.3 billion in 2025) while keeping the dividend flat at ¥11 per share. Under its mid-term plan covering FY2026-FY2030 (Japan fiscal year notation: FY2027-FY2031), the company has signaled a policy of gradually raising dividends in line with profit growth — though the near-term dividend forecast itself remains unchanged at ¥11.

Stock Outlook: Bull Case and Bear Case

Let’s lay out the bull case and bear case for the stock.

Bull case:
(1) SBG holds an almost unmatched portfolio of companies at the center of the generative AI boom, including OpenAI and Arm. As long as demand for AI investment keeps growing, the value of these holdings has room to keep expanding.
(2) The discount between SBG’s stock price and its NAV had widened to roughly 55-60% in 2025, but narrowed sharply through 2026. Some see this as the market finally starting to price in the value of SBG’s AI-related assets.
(3) As of August 4, 2026, the average analyst target price stood at ¥7,651, with “buy” ratings dominating. Many analysts see further upside from current levels.

Bear case:
(1) SBG’s loan-to-value ratio (LTV, interest-bearing debt relative to the value of its holdings) rose to 20.6% as of December 2025, and some observers expect it to climb past 25% during 2026 as SBG continues funding its OpenAI commitments. A highly leveraged, “all-in on AI” strategy carries real financial risk if the value of its holdings were to fall.
(2) In March 2026, S&P revised its outlook on SBG from “stable” to “negative,” citing concerns over reduced liquidity of its investment assets and diminished financial flexibility from its large-scale funding commitments.
(3) A substantial share of the ¥5 trillion net profit in FY2026 came from unrealized valuation gains on holdings like OpenAI, not cash actually realized. The most recent quarter (Q1 FY2026) already showed a year-over-year profit decline, underscoring how much SBG’s results swing with the value of its investment portfolio.

Personally, I see SoftBank Group less as a stock you hold for dividends or value, and more as a direct bet on Masayoshi Son’s conviction about AI. The fact that the stock lost more than 60% of its value in well under six months from its year-to-date high tells you how hard this one is to call in the short term. If you’re considering a position, I’d suggest looking closely at how much of the reported profit is coming from unrealized gains, and only holding what you can stomach given how sharply this stock can move.

Summary

SoftBank Group posted a record ¥5 trillion net profit for FY2026 — an extraordinary result by any Japanese company’s standards — and continues pushing its transformation into an AI-centered conglomerate built around OpenAI and Arm. At the same time, the stock has been extremely volatile through 2026, and the company’s rising LTV and the negative outlook from S&P are real risks tied to its highly leveraged strategy. Weigh both the bull and bear cases carefully. As always, no need to rush — slow and steady. See you in the next post!

Previous Stock Analysis: [Stock Analysis] Mitsui & Co. (TSE: 8031): Q1 Net Profit Up 53%, Is the 4,700 Yen Stock Still a Buy?

Related article: [Stock Analysis] SoftBank Corp (9434): Record ¥1.04 Trillion Operating Profit — Is the 230 Yen Stock Still a Buy?

日本語版はこちら → 【銘柄分析】ソフトバンクグループ(9984)の今後は？純利益5兆円超えの決算とAI全張り戦略を解説

* This article is for informational purposes only and does not recommend buying or selling any specific stock. Please make investment decisions at your own responsibility.

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