Tokyo – Japan’s SoftBank Group reported Tuesday that net profit more than doubled in the second quarter thanks to a boom in AI-related share prices that has fuelled fears of a market bubble.
The tech investment giant logged a net profit of 2.5 trillion yen ($16.2 billion) in July-September, up from 1.2 trillion yen in the same period last year.
SoftBank also announced it sold $5.8 billion worth of shares in US chip giant Nvidia last month, after the quarter had ended.
SoftBank Group’s earnings often swing dramatically because it invests heavily in tech start-ups and semiconductor firms, whose stocks are volatile.
In recent months optimism over the promise of AI technology has sparked a rush of multi-billion-dollar deals – sending tech shares soaring worldwide.
#SoftBank $9984.T posted a strong quarter as its #AI bets finally paid off. Gains from its #OpenAI stake delivered a ¥19B boost to the Vision Fund and pushed group profit well ahead of expectations.
AI-linked revenue hit fresh highs, and SoftBank announced a four-for-one stock… pic.twitter.com/9ropR0qkFs
— Tradu (@TraduOfficial) November 11, 2025
Wall Street’s tech-rich Nasdaq index has surged 25 percent since May.
But that has fed concerns of a market bubble that could eventually burst, like the dot-com boom that imploded at the turn of the millennium.
Nvidia, whose chips are used to train and power generative AI systems, recently became the world’s first company valued above $5 trillion. Its market cap has since receded to around $4.8 trillion.
SoftBank, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and cloud giant Oracle are also leading the $500 billion Stargate project to build AI infrastructure in the United States.
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Source: AFP
