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SoftBank Corp.
ソフトバンク株式会社
Type	Public KK (TYO: 9984)
Founded	Tokyo, Japan (1981)
Headquarters	Tokyo, Japan
Key people	Masayoshi Son (孫正義), Founder, President & CEO; Yoshitaka Kitao, Director; Ken Miyauchi, Director; Kazuhiko Kasai, Director; Masahiro Inoue, Director; Ronald Fisher, Director; Jun Murai, Director; Tadashi Yanai, Director; Mitsuo Sano, Full-time Corporate Auditor
Industry	Telecommunications; Internet
Revenue	▲ ¥ 2,776,169 million JPY (FY 2007)
Net income	▲ ¥ 108,625 million JPY (FY 2007)
Subsidiaries	SoftBank Mobile; Softbank Telecom; Yahoo! Japan (~40%); Softbank BB
Website	SoftBank English Website

SoftBank Corp. (ソフトバンク株式会社, Sofutobanku Kabushiki-gaisha^?) is a Japanese telecommunications and media corporation, with operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-Commerce, Internet, broadmedia, technology services, finance, media and marketing, and other businesses.

SoftBank was established in Tokyo, Japan on September 3, 1981, and had a market capitalisation of approximately US$32.8 billion at 28 February 2006. The SoftBank logo recalls the Meiji period Kaientai.

SoftBank's corporate profile includes various other companies such as Japanese broadband company Cable & Wireless IDC, cable company BB-Serve, and gaming company GungHo Online Entertainment. Additionally, it has various partnerships in Japanese subsidiaries of foreign companies such as Yahoo!, E-Trade and Morningstar. SBI Group is a Japanese financial services company that began in 1999 as a branch of SoftBank.^[1]

SoftBank is currently the only official carrier of the iPhone for Japan.^[2]

[edit] Timeline

Shibuya Store

January 28, 2005 - SoftBank becomes the owner of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, a Nippon Professional Baseball team.
March 17, 2006 - SoftBank announces its agreement to buy Vodafone Japan, giving it a stake in Japan's $78 billion mobile market.
Early April, 2006 - Softbank completed the purchase of 23% of Betfair, an Internet betting exchange.
October 1, 2006 - Vodafone Japan changes its corporate name, mobile phone brand name, and its mobile phone domain name to SoftBank Mobile, SoftBank, and [mb.softbank.jp] respectively. ^[3]
January 28, 2008 - It was announced that SoftBank and Tiffany & Co. collaborated in making a limited 10 model-only cellphone. This cellphone contains more than 400 platinum diamond, totalling more than 20 karat. The cost is said to be more than 100,000,000 yen.^[4]
June 4, 2008 - SoftBank Mobile announced partnership with Apple and brought the iPhone (3G) to Japan later in 2008 ^[5]