SoftBank

Tokyo-listed holding company founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981 whose businesses span the SoftBank Vision Funds, Japanese telecoms through SoftBank Corp., and chip design through Arm and Ampere.

Industry: Technology investment holding company | Location: Tokyo, Japan | Founded: 1981

About SoftBank

SoftBank Group Corp. is a Japanese strategic investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo. It invests in technology businesses and controls operating subsidiaries, and reports segments for investments held directly by the holding companies, the SoftBank Vision Funds, the SoftBank segment covering mobile and broadband in Japan through SoftBank Corp., LY Corporation and PayPay, and an AI Computing segment made up mainly of Arm, Ampere and Graphcore. At 31 March 2026 it reported 67,229 employees on a consolidated basis, and 1,140 group companies.

Masayoshi Son founded Nihon SoftBank on 3 September 1981 and is its representative director, chairman and chief executive. The shares listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1998 and have traded on its Prime Market under the code 9984 since 2022. Yoshimitsu Goto is chief financial officer.

The first SoftBank Vision Fund reached a first close of more than $93 billion in May 2017, with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and the UAE's Mubadala Investment Company among its limited partners alongside Apple, Foxconn, Qualcomm and Sharp. The company's 2026 report names AI models, semiconductors, AI infrastructure and robots as its four focus areas. SoftBank had invested a cumulative $34.6 billion in OpenAI by March 2026 and decided in February 2026 on a further $30 billion, which it expects to bring its stake to about 13 percent.

In January 2025 SoftBank and OpenAI announced the Stargate Project to build AI infrastructure in the United States, and SoftBank is also a partner in the Stargate UAE campus in Abu Dhabi, according to TechScoop. In November 2025 it completed the acquisition of the chip designer Ampere Computing for about $6.1 billion in cash. It has also agreed to buy ABB's robotics business for $5.4 billion and DigitalBridge for $3.1 billion, both scheduled to complete by the end of 2026, and in May 2026 announced a 5 gigawatt AI data centre in France.

For the year ended 31 March 2026 SoftBank Group reported net sales of 7.80 trillion yen and net income attributable to owners of the parent of 5.00 trillion yen, up from 1.15 trillion yen a year earlier.

Leadership

  • Masayoshi Son, Founder, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
  • Yoshimitsu Goto, Board Director, Corporate Officer, Senior Vice President, CFO and CISO
  • Ken Miyauchi, Board Director
  • Rene Haas, Board Director
  • Kazuko Kimiwada, Corporate Officer, Senior Vice President, CAO and CSusO, Head of Accounting Unit

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