reports
- Chris Hoare
Japanese Telcos & Internet What to expect in 2026: Incumbents grind h...
2025 was another tougher year for the Japanese incumbents; with KDDI and SoftBank rising modestly and NTT flat, but all (including Rakuten) underperforming a strong Nikkei. This despite prices rising in Mobile. We think the sector is modestly undervalued and will grind higher with EPS. SoftBank remains our top pick.
- Chris Hoare
- Chris Hoare
Softbank Corp (Buy, TP: ¥270, +26%) Q2 FY25 Quick Take: Strong again
Softbank Corp printed a strong set of results with revenue beating by over 1%, led by growth across the board and earnings beat on EBIT strength from Consumer, Financials and Media & EC. The company has also outlined better than expected revenue target for both Enterprise and Distribution. Interim dividends remained unchanged from last year. Our assessment of the results below.
- Chris Hoare
- Pierre FerraguÊ
SoftBank and the U.S. government shoring up Intel?
Intel and SoftBank announced yesterday evening that SoftBank will acquire $2bn of newly issued Intel shares. At the same time reports of the U.S. government taking a direct stake in Intel are becoming more tangible. Please see the link below for our take.
- Chris Hoare
Japanese Telcos – Q1 FY25 review: Steady start, all eyes on Mobile pri...
Revenue trends were steady as the softer mobile growth was offset by improvement in non-mobile. Softbank remained the outperformer, but this has already been baked in as expectations for Group revenue are sitting ahead of guidance by 3%.
- Chris Hoare
- Pierre FerraguÊ
Softbank Corp (Buy, TP: ¥270, +19%) Q1 FY25 Quick Take: Another decen...
Softbank Corp reported a relatively in-line topline and EBITDA whilst headline EBIT was 4% ahead of expectations. Trends in mobile service revenue slowed with continued momentum in net additions (in particular Y!Mobile) offsetting the marginal decline in mobile ARPU.
- Chris Hoare
LY Corp (Buy, ¥585, +6%) Q1 FY25 Quick Take: Slight miss, momentum in...
Both revenue and EBITDA missed consensus by 1% on weaker Media trends and higher costs associated with GenAI investments. By contrast both PayPay and Account advertising continue to trend strongly, partially offset by a higher comparable base and weakness in Search advertising. Management had reiterated its FY25 guidance with some updates on the LINE App renewal.
- Chris Hoare
Japanese Telcos Q4 FY24 review: Inflationary telco market
Japan’s mobile sector accelerated again in Q4 and we think is heading to above inflation. With both KDDI and DCM recently announcing price increases the environment is increasingly benign and should be helped by NTT’s recent acquisition of SBI Sumishin Net Bank. Our recent trip to Japan highlighted how positive the environment is; NTT stays our preferred pick, with KDDI closely behind.
- Pierre FerraguÊ
CLS CELESTICA INC.
NOW SERVICENOW INC.
TXN TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
TSLA TESLA INC
T AT&T INC.
MXL MAXLINEAR INC
LRCX LAM RESEARCH CORPORATION
INTC INTEL CORPORATION
GOOGL ALPHABET INC. CLASS A
NOKIA NOKIA OYJ
BSI BE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRIES N.V.
2330 TSMC
6723 RENESAS ELECTRONICS CORPORATION
9984 SOFTBANK GROUP CORP.
DLR DIGITAL REALTY TRUST INC.
ASML ASML HOLDING N.V.
DHER ASML HOLDING NV
MBLY DELIVERY HERO SE
AAPL MOBILEYE NV
IBM APPLE INC.
STM INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
BESI STMICROELECTRONICS NV
9434 SOFTBANK CORP.
VRT VERTIV HOLDINGS CO (A)
HYUELE SK HYNIX
AAPL US APPLE INC
- Chris Hoare
Takeaways from Meetings with the Japanese Telcos + Rakuten in Tokyo. D...
We met with all 3 of the incumbent Japanese Telcos & Rakuten in Tokyo last week, as well as visiting Osaka to talk to NTT in more depth about IOWN. Overall, we remain bullish on Japanese telcos operationally and buyers of all three incumbents. NTT remains our top pick followed by KDDI.
- Chris Hoare
Softbank Corp (Buy, TP: ¥270, +22%) Q4 24 Quick Take: Mobile up-tradi...
Softbank Corp delivered a decent EBITDA and EBIT beat in Q4 led by steady topline growth and cost reductions. Mobile service revenue was very strong and accelerated in Q4, supported by net additions whilst mobile ARPU was relatively stable. Despite FY25 guidance being revised higher, it was still 4-5% below expectations at the EBIT and earnings line.
- Chris Hoare
LY Corp (Buy, ¥585, +7%) Q4 FY24 Quick Take: Bullish EBITDA guidance;...
LY announced a decent set of results and a fairly strong FY25 guidance for EBITDA and Adjusted EPS. The company has unveiled three key focus areas in FY25 – feature enhancements for LINE App to capitalise on business growth, introduce AI agents across its ecosystem and to further expand PayPay Bank services.
- Pierre FerraguÊ
- Pierre FerraguÊ
Getting over Tariffs – Step back. Rethink. Move on.
Swings observed in the last 10 days has been second to none. The Great Financial Crisis and Covid didn’t get us in a worst spot. Make no mistake: The markets are panicking today even more than when the world came to a COVID standstill, with the individual contributors to the vast majority of the world’s GDP locked down. How reasonable is that? Very little, in our view. The polarization of the political landscape has created a global brain freeze. Few analyses calmly assess the U.S. administrati...
- Pierre FerraguÊ
- Pelham Smithers
PSA Strategy: Japan Stock Market Quarterly for 2025 Q2
In this quarterly strategy report, we look to evaluate where we are with regards the bull market conditions, and where those indicators might be headed, factoring in the downside risks, from Trump tariffs and the US economy, BoJ actions, Japanese earnings and valuations.
AMAT APPLIED MATERIALS INC.
6146 DISCO CORPORATION
5108 BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION
7751 CANON INC.
9697 CAPCOM CO. LTD.
4519 CHUGAI PHARMACEUTICAL CO. LTD.
4755 RAKUTEN INC.
9684 SQUARE ENIX HOLDINGS CO. LTD.
8473 SBI HOLDINGS INC.
6954 FANUC CORPORATION
4324 DENTSU GROUP INC.
6861 KEYENCE CORPORATION
6869 SYSMEX CORPORATION
8306 MITSUBISHI UFJ FINANCIAL GROUP INC.
6501 HITACHI LTD.
6305 HITACHI CONSTRUCTION MACHINERY CO. LTD.
7267 HONDA MOTOR CO. LTD.
6301 KOMATSU LTD.
6503 MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORP.
6723 RENESAS ELECTRONICS CORPORATION
7974 NINTENDO CO. LTD.
6594 NIDEC CORPORATION
7731 NIKON CORP.
8604 NOMURA HOLDINGS INC.
7733 OLYMPUS CORP.
4666 PARK24 CO. LTD.
2371 KAKAKU.COM INC.
9984 SOFTBANK GROUP CORP.
1803 SHIMIZU CORPORATION
4063 SHIN-ETSU CHEMICAL CO LTD
6758 SONY CORPORATION
7269 SUZUKI MOTOR CORP.
1801 TAISEI CORP
6857 ADVANTEST CORP.
4186 TOKYO OHKA KOGYO CO. LTD.
8035 TOKYO ELECTRON LTD.
7203 TOYOTA MOTOR CORP.
2413 M3 INC.
2160 GNI GROUP LTD.
3659 NEXON CO. LTD.
6098 RECRUIT HOLDINGS CO. LTD.
3769 GMO PAYMENT
6460 JP SEGA SAMMY
4385 MERCARI INC.
3993 PKSHA TECHNOLOGY INC.
9434 SOFTBANK CORP.
78320 BANDAI NAMCO
45870 PEPTIDREAM INC
3491 JT GA TECHNOLOGIES
3394 JT MONEY FOWARD
6532 JT BAYCURRENT CONSULTING (6532 JT)
4483 JMDC
4180 JP APPIER GROUP
TSE: 2980 SRE HOLDINGS CORP
4194 VISIONAL INC
6526 SOCIONEXT INC
5032 JT ANYCOLOR INC
5838 RAKUTEN BANK LTD.
5253 JT COVER CORPORATION (5253 JT)
9616 JT KYORITSU MAINTENANCE (9616 JT)
- Chris Hoare
Japanese Telcos Q3 FY24 review: Diverging expectations; NTT still pre...
Aggregate service revenue trended better on higher contribution from non-mobile, coupled with mobile improvement. Industry mobile was primarily driven by Softbank’s outperformance. Q3 EBITDA dropped on higher mobile marketing costs at NTT which the company seeks to offset through cost efficiencies. DOCOMO is the clear mobile underperformer, but we believe expectations for Fixed recovery is still low, plus there is IOWN optionality. NTT remains our preferred pick.
- Chris Hoare
- Chris Hoare
LY Corp (Buy, ¥585, +23%) Q3 FY24 Quick Take: Strong delivery from Co...
LY delivered another EBITDA beat, surpassing expectations by 5%. Revenue and EBITDA trends accelerated, underpinned by PayPay and improvements in Commerce’s re-use and services segment. The company is well on track to beat its EPS guidance for the year and as a result upgraded DPS guidance to ¥7 from ¥5.56.
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