Softbank to raise stake in Sprint; profit declines

TOKYO: Japanese internet and solar company Softbank Group Corp is raising its stake in Sprint Corp after merger talks with T-mobile collapsed, signaling its commitment to a turnaround at the US wireless carrier.

Tokyo-based Softbank reported Monday that July-september net profit tumbled to 113 billion yen ($991 million) from 528 billion yen a year ago.

Quarterly sales rose nearly 4% to 2.23 trillion yen ($19.5 billion) on improved results at Sprint, as well as revenue from Arm, a British chips company Softbank acquired last year.

Helping bring profit lower was the absence of last year’s foreign-exchange gains, as well as derivative losses that came from its sale of part of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

T-mobile and Sprint are the third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers, respectively, in the US, but they are significantly smaller than AT&T and Verizon, which effectively have a duopoly over the US wireless service.