The Japanese company's investment in Intel paid off.
SoftBank Group stock tanked 4.41% in Tokyo on Thursday as investors reduced exposure to a volatile Asian AI trade before the company released its first-quarter results. The caution looked premature when the numbers arrived after the market closed.
SoftBank Group's first-quarter net profit dropped due to lower gains from its Vision Funds business.
SoftBank on Thursday reported profit for its fiscal first quarter that beat market expectations.
Asian technology stocks rallied on Wednesday after Wall Street's record-setting session fueled optimism around artificial intelligence and growth stocks. Shares of SoftBank surged more than 10%.
SoftBank Corp. (SOBKY) Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript
The Nikkei 225 Index continued its freefall as technology companies like Softbank, Tokyo Electron, Kioxia, and Advantest plunged ahead of the upcoming big-tech earnings. It plunged by over 4%, reaching its lowest level since June 11.
SoftBank extended Asia's technology rout on Friday, sliding 9.7% by Tokyo's midday break as investors continued pulling money from the region's most crowded artificial-intelligence trades. The fall followed a brutal Thursday in Seoul, where SK Hynix tumbled 13%, Samsung Electronics lost 8.8% and the Kospi sank 6.4%.
Japanese AI-linked stocks tumbled on Friday as a fresh rout in U.S. semiconductor shares spread across Asia. The declines followed another weak session for U.S. technology stocks.
The development of AI will require investment of $5 trillion each year by 2040, and any talk of a bubble forming around the technology is "absurd", SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son said on Tuesday.
OpenAI originally planned to go public in late 2026, but it now looks like that won't happen until 2027. A $40 billion loan that SoftBank took out to support its OpenAI investment comes due in March 2027.
SoftBank Corp and mobile payments operator PayPay are in talks to invest in retail giant Seven & i Holdings , Bloomberg News reported on Friday.