Japanese tech firm SoftBank posts $1.6B quarterly profit on OpenAI gains

By Mucahithan Avcioglu

ISTANBUL (AA) - Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group reported a 248.6 billion yen ($1.62 billion) profit in the October-December quarter of last year, boosted by the rising valuation of its OpenAI investment.

The profit in the October-December quarter was comparable with a net loss of $2.4 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to the firm's financial results released Thursday.

In its fiscal third quarter, which ends in December, the company reported $4.2 billion gain on the value of its OpenAI investment, offsetting losses from declines in the share prices of Coupang and Chinese ride-hailing service Didi.

A downgrade in its share in ByteDance, the firm's TikTok developer, also affected investment losses, the company said.

SoftBank has invested in AI startups it believes will win categories through the Vision Fund, aiming to position itself at the forefront of the technology's advancement. The firm posted a $2.4 billion gain at the Vision Fund.

Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank, stated in 2024 that artificial superintelligence, or ASI, which he defined as technology 10,000 times smarter than humans, would be a decade away.

Yoshimitsu Goto, the CFO of SoftBank Group, said in a presentation on Thursday that "ASI-oriented investments" now account for 60% of the company's assets.

As part of its AI push, SoftBank has invested more than $30 billion in OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT. About 11% of OpenAI is owned by SoftBank.

From April to December, SoftBank reported a $17 billion return on its OpenAI investment. According to Goto's presentation, the gain indicates that the "decision on investment was successful."