SoftBank

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, with operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, Internet, technology services, finance, media and marketing, and other businesses.

SoftBank was established in 1981 and is headquartered in Tokyo. As at 2015, SoftBank was the 62nd largest company in the world (based on a composite of sales, profit, assets and market value).

History

SoftBank was established in Tokyo, Japan, on September 3, 1981. In May 2015, SoftBank was ranked in the Forbes Global 2000 list as the 62nd largest public company in the world. Between 2009 and 2014, SoftBank's market capitalization increased by 557%, the fourth largest relative increase in the world over that period. At the beginning of 2015, the company was the third largest public company in Japan after Toyota and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial.

SoftBank's corporate profile includes various other companies such as Japanese broadband company SoftBank BB, data center company IDC Frontier, gaming company GungHo Online Entertainment, and the publishing company SB Creative. Additionally, it has various partnerships in Japanese subsidiaries of foreign companies such as Yahoo!, E-Trade, Ustream.tv, EF Education First and Morningstar. SBI Group is a Japanese financial services company that began in 1999 as a branch of SoftBank.