Japan’s financial industry is flourishing. Reports from companies throughout the country are being released that seem to back up that premise.
One company, SoftBank Group Corp has reported their operating income in the fiscal first quarter ending. The quarter ended in June and the company’s income rose 50 percent year-on-year to JPY479.3 billion ($4.33 billion) from JPY319.2 billion.
In the company’s corresponding year-earlier period, their net sales and EBITDA increased 3 percent to JPY2.186 trillion and JPY700.1 billion respectively. While, the company’s net income did plummet 98 percent y-o-y to JPY5.5 billion, which is down from JPY254.2 billion.
Although SoftBank excluded the gain on sales of Alibaba shares in the year-earlier period and a derivative loss in relation to the monetization of Alibaba shares. Their net income would have been JPY183.3 billion if the exclusion wasn’t made.
The first-quarter capital expenditure or CAPEX of JPY215.7 billion marked significant growth on the JPY1490 billion spent in April-June 2016. Meanwhile, SoftBank’s US mobile venture Sprint reported revenue of JPY910.4 billion compared to JPY873.9 billion previously. As the growth adjusted EBITDA it improved to JPY321.9 billion from JPY271.7 billion.
One feature that assisted SoftBank’s rise is that the company played its part in the delivery of a reliable business-oriented mobile network-powered access service, dubbed ‘Twin Access’, for the Japanese group. This has been made a possibility by NEC Corporation.
"NEC is very pleased to be able to contribute to the provision of SoftBank's Twin Access service," said Toshiya Tsuji, SVP, NEC Corporation. "PCC communication technology is enabling us to ensure constant transmission, and to achieve stable and highly reliable communications that are necessary for effective business practices everywhere."
Twin Access is categorized as an access service that can utilize two mobile network connections to maintain constant, active connectivity between NEC Agater AG2521line terminal equipment and center-based devices that foreground so-called virtualization technology. This technology uses Packet Copy Capsuled (PCC) technology developed jointly by the pair.
Twin Access has been designed to offer improved transmission quality with higher packet delivery rates than conventional single mobile line systems. This enables more stable and reliable communications. SoftBank intends to launch the new service commercially in October as part of its line-up of Smart VPN services, subject to the successful completion of ongoing field trials.
“Because of its high quality of service, Twin Access can be used at locations where fibre lines are not available, or as an alternative to wired lines such as DSL or digital access … in addition, by utilising the features of mobile networks, such as their freedom from cable installations, Twin Access makes it possible to build flexible, economical, short term networks, such as temporary networks,” said Takenori Kobayashi, VP, network division, SoftBank.
Regarding SoftBank’s domestic operations, the company reported that net sales decreased by 0.8 percent y-o-y to JPY755.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA fell to JPY329.5 billion from JPY351.3 billion, on continued growth in smartphone and SoftBank Hikari fibre-optic subscribers.
Japan’s SoftBank will continue to work to strive to develop over the long-term by forming partnerships with the most superior companies at the time in the information industry, without adhering to particular technologies or business models.
Edited by
Ken Briodagh
