Japan's Softbank books soaring profit on iPhone sales

Japan's third-biggest mobile phone operator Softbank said Thursday that net profit soared 65.4 percent for the fiscal year through March thanks to brisk sales of Apple's new iPhone 4S. The company said it earned 313.8 billion yen ($3.9 billion) in the past year, up from 189.7 billion yen in the prior 12 months. Softbank's operating profit increased 7.3 percent to 675.3 billion yen with sales at 3.2 trillion yen, up 6.6 percent from the previous year. In a statement, the company credited demand for Apple's latest smartphone, saying its sales and profit rise was partly "due to strong growth in shipments of iPhone 4S." Included in the latest results was a 76.0 billion yen gain on the sale of Softbank's investment in US Internet giant Yahoo!, the Japanese firm said. Softbank had been the only Japanese mobile operator to offer the iPhone, but it now faces tougher competition after KDDI Corp., the country's second-largest carrier, began selling Apple's latest handset in October. Softbank did not provide a forecast for the current fiscal year through March 2013, saying only that it "expects operating income to certainly exceed 700.0 billion yen."