Tokyo Shiodome Building, SoftBank's headquarters
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Native name
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ソフトバンクグループ株式会社 |
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Public | |
Traded as | |
Industry | Telecommunications |
Founded | September 3, 1981 |
Founders | Masayoshi Son |
Headquarters |
Tokyo Shiodome Building (〒105-7317, 1-9-1 Higashi-shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan) |
Key people
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Masayoshi Son (Chairman and CEO) Ken Miyauchi (President and COO) |
Products | Fixed line and mobile telephony, Internet services, digital television |
Revenue | ¥9.15 trillion (FY2015) |
¥999.5 billion (FY2015) | |
¥474.1 billion (FY2015) | |
Total assets | ¥20.7 trillion (FY2015) |
Total equity | ¥2.6 trillion (FY2015) |
Number of employees
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69,154 (2016) |
Subsidiaries |
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Website | www.softbank.co.jp |
SoftBank Group Corp. (ソフトバンクグループ株式会社? Sofutobanku Gurūpu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational telecommunications and Internet corporation established on September 3, 1981, and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It has operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, Internet, technology services, finance, media and marketing, semiconductor design, and other businesses. The company is headed by founder Masayoshi Son.
SoftBank was ranked in the Forbes Global 2000 list as the 62nd largest public company in the world, and the third largest public company in Japan after Toyota and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial. Between 2009 and 2014, SoftBank's market capitalization increased by 557%, the fourth largest relative increase in the world over that period.
SoftBank bought COMDEX from The Interface Group in 1995, and in 1999 allowed organizers of COMDEX to restrict admission of media, creating a spiraling effect. They eventually sold COMDEX to Key3Media, a spin-off of Ziff Davis, in 2001.
On January 28, 2005, SoftBank became the owner of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, a Nippon Professional Baseball team. On March 17, 2006, SoftBank announced its agreement to buy Vodafone Japan, giving it a stake in Japan's $78 billion mobile market. In April 2006, they bought a 23% stake of Betfair, an Internet betting exchange. In August 2006, SoftBank sold all its shares of SBI Group to a subsidiary of SBI's holding company, making SBI independent. On October 1, 2006, Vodafone Japan changed its corporate name, mobile phone brand name, and its mobile phone domain name to SoftBank Mobile, SoftBank, and [mb.softbank.jp], respectively.