SoftBank H1 net profit down on one-off factor

SoftBank said Monday its net profit for the first half of the fiscal year plunged after the previous year's sale of a game development business, but operating profit surged on brisk sales for its US telecom unit.

The Japanese mobile giant said net profit for the six months to September came in at 102.6 billion yen ($900 million), down 86.6 percent from the same period a year earlier.

The dive in SoftBank's net profits was mainly because it sold former mobile game subsidiary Supercell Oy and the profits from this unit had inflated last year's figures, it said.

But operating profit soared 35.1 percent to 874.8 billion yen thanks to a sound performance from its US wireless unit Sprint, the company said.

Sales edged up 3.3 percent to 4.41 trillion yen, it said.

The figures came after Sprint and T-Mobile announced over the weekend they had called off merger talks.

T-Mobile, an affiliate of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, and Sprint are the third and fourth largest US wireless operators, respectively.

Together the pair would have had 131 million subscribers, virtually matching second-ranked AT&T and posing stiff competition to market leader Verizon Communications.

SoftBank did not release earnings estimates for the fiscal year through March 2018, which is not unusual for the company.

Led by flamboyant founder Masayoshi Son, SoftBank has embarked on a string of international acquisitions both big and small in recent years.

Son was among the first business people to meet Donald Trump after his November election victory, and was also among dozens of Japanese and American business leaders who attended a speech by the visiting US president in Tokyo on Monday.

Son has pledged to invest $50 billion in business and job-creation in the United States, winning praise from the then president-elect.

Shares in Softbank lost 2.59 percent to close at 9,945 yen on Monday, before the earnings report was released.

Source: AFP