SoftBank Group shares rose sharply after U.S.-listed shares of chip design unit Arm Holdings rose overnight following a better-than-expected outlook.
SoftBank Group Shares 9984,
they recently rose 8.3% to 7,168 yen after rising as much as 9.6% Thursday morning.
The British chip designer’s stock ARM,
rose 20% in after-hours trading, tracking the company’s forecast for sales of $850 million to $900 million in the current quarter. That beat forecasts of $779 million in a survey of FactSet analysts.
The company raised its annual sales forecast from a high of $3.08 billion to a high of $3.21 billion.
Arm is profiting from growing investments in artificial intelligence and the chips that underpin the technology. While the company’s circuitry is dominant in mobile phones, it is increasingly making its way into chips destined for data centers where artificial intelligence calculations are made.
SoftBank Group will release third-quarter results later on Thursday. The Japanese technology investment firm is expected to post net profit of 247.25 billion yen ($1.67 billion) for the three months ended Dec. 31, according to a survey of analysts conducted by Quick.
This would be its first quarterly profit after four consecutive quarters of losses and compares with a net loss of 783.415 billion yen in the year-earlier period.