TOKYO (AP) â€" Softbank Corp., Japan's exclusive iPhone carrier, said Thursday its net profit leaped during its fiscal third quarter and raised its profit target for the full year.
The Tokyo-based company said net profit increased to 65.46 billion yen ($802.2 million) during the October-December period, up from 24.11 billion yen a year earlier.
The Internet conglomerate has a wide range of businesses, including Japan's Yahoo portal, but relies on its mobile division for the bulk of its profits. Softbank remains Japan's No. 3 carrier but said new subscribers â€" and profits â€" have steadily increased as the iPhone has continued to gain in popularity.
CEO Masayoshi Son said his company is in position to pay off the huge debts it took on when it purchased its mobile carrier business from Vodafone Group PLC in 2006, and intends to expand aggressively, especially in China.
"We have reached a point where our core can firmly support our other activities," Son said.
The company announced it had taken a 35 percent share in Chinese firm Synacast Corp., which operates PPTV, the country's largest online television provider. It already has large holdings in companies such as Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce giant with its own search service.
Softbank said it now targets 600 billion yen in operating profit for the fiscal year, up from its earlier target of 500 billion yen. It doesn't provide sales or profit targets.
Within Japan, the company continued to draw subscribers in the third quarter, attracting 56 percent of all new contracts, or 925,700 users.
Son said the iPhone continued to dominate other smartphones in the country, in part because of the number of applications available in Japanese. He said there are 300,000 native apps available for purchase in yen on the iPhone, versus only 6,000 on Google's alternative Android operating system.
Sales rose 13 percent to 784.9 billion yen from a year earlier, while operating profit increased 23 percent.
The large jump in net profit from a year ago was due in part to an asset write-off that dragged down its bottom line in the earlier quarter.
Softbank took out large loans to purchase the struggling Japanese unit of Vodafone for 1.8 trillion yen, seen as a risky gamble at the time. But the company said Thursday it is paying down the debt and aims to clear it by 2015.
Softbank shares slipped 0.9 percent to 2,874 yen at the end of trading Thursday before the earnings announcement. The company bases its earnings on Japanese standards.
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