SoftBank lifts June quarter profit by 19.1%

Japan’s SoftBank lifted its net profit for the June quarter by 19.1% year-on-year to 254.16 billion yen ($2.42 billion), largely as a result of solid growth from the company’s domestic telecoms business.

Domestic telecoms service revenue grew 5.4% to 761.8 trillion yen following steady growth of the operator’s SoftBank Hikari fiber service. Total FTTH subscribers grew to 2.24 million, from 1.72 million in the previous quarter.

The company meanwhile grew its mobile subscriber base by 580,000 year-on-year to 32.15 million, with smartphone and tablet subscribers outweighing net losses for feature phones.

Total ARPU declined by 50 yen to 4,610 yen, but service ARPU increased by 40 yen to 560 yen, reflecting an increase in the number of subscribers to the operator’s content services.

Revenues from SoftBank’s US subsidiary Sprint meanwhile declined 9.6% year-on-year to 848.09 billion yen, but remained largely flat in US dollar terms.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son assured reporters at an event announcing the company’s results that Sprint is about to turn into a revenue generator for the company after multiple quarters of negatively affecting the company’s results.

SoftBank paid $21.6 billion to acquire control of Sprint in 2013, and the company has repeatedly insisted that Sprint’s fortunes are about to turn around.

Now SoftBank is planning another big bet. The operator recently arranged to acquire chipmaker ARM for $31 billion to pursue opportunities in the emerging IoT sector, which Son believes will be the “biggest paradigm shift in human history.”