Interest in Arm Holdings credited for surge in SoftBank share value

Telecoms division revises its full-year profit forecast in line with positive trends

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SoftBank Group Corp saw its shares rise sharply, by more than 10%, due to positive developments within its telecommunications division and renewed enthusiasm around Arm Holdings. SoftBank Corp, the group’s telecommunications division, announced an upward revision to its full-year profit forecast. This optimism was further fuelled by the strong performance of Arm Holdings, in which SoftBank Group has a significant stake.

SoftBank Corp’s robust financial results played a crucial role in the share price rise. Revenue for the first nine months of FY2025 reached a record 5.2 trillion yen, up 8% from the previous year. Operating profit also showed growth, rising 8% to 884 billion yen.

SoftBank Corp is confident of its momentum and revised upwards its full-year revenue forecast to 6.95 trillion yen from 6.7 trillion yen. Its operating profit target was also raised to 1.02 trillion yen. The telecommunications subsidiary highlighted its commitment to meet its fiscal year 2025 targets, while strategically refining aspects of its consumer business to prioritise long-term profitability over subscriber growth.

Although SoftBank Corp’s consumer business saw modest revenue growth of 3%, segment earnings rose 6%. This positive trend occurred despite a 100,000 drop in the number of smartphone customers in the third quarter, due to the company’s decision to adopt a stricter customer acquisition policy.

The rise in Arm Holdings shares gave SoftBank Group an additional boost. Andrew Jackson, head of Japanese equity strategy at Ortus Advisors, attributed this positive impact to SoftBank Group’s significant stake in the British chip designer. Arm Holdings’ growth is increasingly being driven by its expansion into artificial intelligence applications beyond smartphones.

Rene Haas, CEO of Arm, referred to the company’s impressive growth in data centre royalty revenue, which was more than 100% higher than last year. He expressed the expectation that their data centre business will surpass mobile as the largest segment within a few years. Arm also aims to deliver half of the central processing units used by leading cloud computing companies, also known as hyperscalers, by the end of the year.

Despite disappointing results against Wall Street’s licensing revenue estimates, Arm Holdings achieved record quarterly revenue of $1.242 billion for the last three months of 2025. This success was driven by the increasing demand for artificial intelligence solutions. The figure surpassed LSEG SmartEstimates, which prioritises forecasts from analysts with a consistent track record of accuracy.

Business AM

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