Research and Markets: Japanese Telecom Leader SoftBank Announce Biggest Ever Buy Back

DUBLIN, February 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

A recent report published on Research and Markets has forecast the smartphone market in Japan to grow at a CAGR of 19.78% between 2015 and 2019. The smartphone market in Japan is on a boom because of the rising popularity of m-commerce, smartphone applications and mobile advertising.

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Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank today have announced plans to buy back up to 500 billion yen ($4.4 billion) worth of its own stock. The company previously purchased around $1 billion of shares in August, with stocks falling over 37% year-on-year.^[1]

This decline has pushed the Japanese company's market value below that of its own investments in companies, including Chinese company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The stock's poor performance can be attributed to the failings of Sprint. The US company's shares have fallen 27% this year, while Alibaba's have also fallen 25%.

The company could be boosted by growth in the wireless network infrastructure market. A recent report predicted that the market will account for over $92 billion by the end of 2020. The report expects C-RAN investments to account for nearly $14 billion and 5G R&D investments to reach $5 billion, following growth at a rate of nearly 40% over the next five years. A similar report on the global Wi-Fi market also expects growth from USD 14.8 Billion in 2015 to USD 33.6 Billion by 2020, at an estimated CAGR of 17.8% from 2015 to 2020.

This news comes a week after SoftBank reported better-than-expected 7.3% rise in third-quarter operating profits. Although this rise could be attributed of their other segments, with the company operating in mobile communication services, e-commerce, distribution, robotics and others.

For further information on this topic, and a full list of all related documentation, please visit the Wireless section of http://www.researchandmarkets.com/rm/LNMS.

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1. Source: Bloomberg [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-15/softbank-to-buy-back-as-much-as-14-2-of-stock-for-4-4-billion ]

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