Management Policy and Strategy

Management policy

Guided by its corporate philosophy of “Information Revolution — Happiness for everyone,” SoftBank Corp. (the “Company” or “SoftBank” or “we”) and its subsidiaries (the “Group”) has been aiming to become a corporate group needed most by people around the world. We are developing a variety of businesses in the information and technology fields while enhancing our telecommunications business, and are working to maximize our corporate value by using the power of technology to solve social issues.

Growth strategy
“Beyond Carrier”

The Group has designated “Beyond Carrier” as its growth strategy since FY2017. The strategy aims to expand business fields other than telecommunications, while further growing our core telecommunications business by increasing the number of smartphone and broadband subscribers. As our own unique measure, we are working on rapidly launching new businesses in Japan by utilizing cutting-edge AI and other technologies, and business models of the investees of our parent company, SoftBank Group Corp.

Under this strategy, in September 2018, we launched PayPay, a smartphone payment service, by leveraging the technology of Paytm, India's leading smartphone payment company and a portfolio company of SoftBank Vision Fund1^*1. In June 2019, we made Yahoo Japan Corporation (currently Z Holdings Corporation, “Z Holdings”) our subsidiary. Z Holdings operates Yahoo! Japan, one of the largest portal sites in Japan. In addition, in March 2021, we completed the business integration of Z Holdings and LINE Corporation (“LINE”), which provides one of the largest social communication services in Japan. As a result, the Group has become one of the largest telecommunications and IT groups in Japan, holding approximately 38 million^*2 users of mobile services, 80 million^*3 users of Yahoo! JAPAN, 40 million^*4 users of PayPay, and 88 million^*5 users of LINE.

From FY2021, the “Beyond Carrier” growth strategy has moved into its second phase. In the second phase, we aim to become a “comprehensive digital platformer” that creates new value by connecting our powerful platforms with the power of cutting-edge technologies, based on the strength of our compelling user base we have cultivated to date. By using the power of technology to solve social issues, SoftBank aims to maximize its corporate value and become a corporate group needed most by people around the world.

Presentation materials, Earnings Results Briefing for FY2020 (PDF: 16.8MB/94 pages)

Financial targets

Target more than ¥1 trillion of operating income in FY2022

We have set financial targets for FY2022.

Shareholder returns

Combining dividends and share buybacks

We consider the return of profits to shareholders to be an important goal for our management. We have set our shareholder return policy during FY2020 to FY2022 at a total shareholder return ratio of approximately 85%^*7. In addition, we will not reduce dividend per share, and consider flexibly implementing share buybacks.

At the same time, in order to increase our corporate value, we will continue to invest in new businesses in addition to capital expenditures for the early deployment of 5G. We believe we can achieve both a high rate of shareholder returns and growth investments based on our ability to make highly efficient investments in new businesses in cooperation with the SoftBank Group Corp. portfolio companies.