Do you know the real presence of SoftBank Group?
Hello, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m Ozumi, thank you for visiting my blog.
I started this blog with a too much outrageous title for me. Since this is the first post, please allow me to introduce myself and also would like to mention to some points which might be very familiar with for whom well knows SoftBank.
For me, I’m just an office worker in Tokyo. But my working days are getting boring recently. Also, I can’t expect bright future not only for my company, but also for Japan. At that time, the meeting with SoftBank literally changed my life.
I believe none in Japan has never heard of SoftBank or its founder name, Masayoshi Son. On the other hand, how many people well understand its business area or the vast dream of future they have? I think there are not so many people do.
To tell the truth, I was also one of them until I saw the joint press conference by SoftBank and TOYOTA on October 2018. I regarded SoftBank as one of 3 major Japanese network providers. However, the presentation made at that time changed my view of SoftBank dramatically. I have started to watch/check all the available documents/videos since then and learned a lot about their business. As I learned it, I was getting to be attracted to the future drawn by them.
And finally, I got an opportunity to hear Son-san’s presentation in person and it was really impresed me. Then I decided to do something to express my feeling.
So, let's move to the main talk of this post.
SoftBank Group is NOT the company what was well known as “one of Big 3 mobile companies in Japan” any more. I think we should regard this company as “the world largest platform which leads information revolution based mainly on AI”. For example, you can see this fact from the slide below.
(Source:”Earnings Results for the Fiscal Year ended March 31, 2019”, Slide 11)
As you see, more than half of its EBIT came NOT from their well known business segment “SoftBank”, BUT from SVF, which is the abbreviation of SoftBank Vision Fund. So, I think now is the time to say, SoftBank is a company to draw a future based on AI. Well, honestly speaking, their vision for future sounds like a pipe dream if you don’t know about their strategy. However, they have a quite solid philosophy and very cutting-edge “Cluster of No.1 Strategy”. Therefore, although you might feel their vision is too big to realize, I think it’s worth keeping our eyes on their activity.
The contents which I plan to introduce in this blog will be mostly about the future which will be created by the companies receiving investment from Vision Fund. The below picture is the list of such companies.
(Source:”Earnings Results for the Fiscal Year ended March 31, 2019”, Slide 35)
I think you may be not familiar with most of these companies, except for the funs of SoftBank. I’m really looking forward to learning more about these companies during continuing this blog. I will do my best to tell the attraction of the future drawn by SoftBank.
For just in case, I would like to mention that I'm writhing this blog ONLY for the purpose of improving my skill or understanding. This blog doesn't have any other meaning.
Thank you for reading!!
P.S. You can download the original presentation which I quoted in this post from below.
https://group.softbank/en/corp/irinfo/presentations/2018/#29840
#SoftBank #VisionFund
