Japan's Softbank Corp said Tuesday it returned to profits in the quarter to June as its loss-making Internet service business turned around and its mobile phone operations brought in cash.
Softbank, which earlier this year bought British mobile giant Vodafone's ailing local unit, reported a net profit of 1.42 billion yen (12.39 million dollars), compared with a loss of 11.15 billion yen a year earlier.
Operating income reached 54.36 billion yen for the April-June quarter, against a loss of 3.19 billion in the same period last year, as revenue jumped 91 percent to 494.23 billion yen.
Softbank, which owns search engine Yahoo Japan, saw particular growth in its ADSL online business, which racked up 9.3 billion yen in profit in the first quarter as opposed to a 12.4 billion yen loss a year earlier.
Softbank also earned operating profit of 27.3 billion yen in its mobile phone service.
Founded by Masayoshi Son, one of Japan's richest people, the sprawling Softbank group has expanded by buying stakes in hundreds of companies.
In April, it completed a deal to buy Vodafone Japan for 15 billion dollars. It plans to rebrand it "Softbank Mobile" on October 1, ditching the name of the British giant which struggled to penetrate the competitive Japanese market.
For the full year to March 2006, Softbank also returned to profit thanks to brisk sales of its broadband services. Softbank did not provide any forecasts for the year to March 2007.
