SoftBank dethrones Toyota as Japan’s most valuable company

For decades, Toyota Motor was the undisputed crown jewel of Japanese capitalism — a colossus that symbolised the country’s post-war industrial might. That crown has now passed to a software conglomerate.

SoftBank Group officially surpassed Toyota as Japan’s most valuable publicly listed company last Monday, capping a stunning rally that has made it the clearest proxy for global investor appetite for artificial intelligence.

SoftBank shares surged 13% on Monday alone, closing at an all-time high after the company unveiled a plan to invest $52 billion in new data centres in France — a move designed to extend its infrastructure footprint beyond its existing hubs in the United States and Japan.

The announcement reinforced a narrative that has driven the stock relentlessly higher: Masayoshi Son is positioning SoftBank at the very centre of the AI industrial complex.

The financial results have matched the ambition. Last month, SoftBank reported that its quarterly profit tripled to 1.83 trillion yen ($11.60 billion) in the March quarter, boosted substantially by gains on its stake in OpenAI.

The company also bolstered its war chest by exiting positions in Nvidia and T-Mobile last year, moves that have left it with considerable cash reserves to deploy into its next bets.

The contrast with Toyota could scarcely be starker. The automaker, which held the top spot in Japanese market capitalisation for years, is navigating a confluence of headwinds: punishing U.S. tariffs, disruption from the conflict in the Middle East, and sluggish electric vehicle demand. In its most recent quarterly report, Toyota disclosed a profit decline of nearly 50%, and warned that full-year earnings are expected to fall by a fifth in the fiscal year now underway.

The divergence is equally pronounced in retail investor sentiment. According to data from Stocktwits, 90-day message volume for SoftBank’s ADR ticker (SFTBY) doubled over the past quarter, while activity around Toyota (TM) collapsed by 78%.

Retail sentiment on Toyota has slid to “extremely bearish,” while SoftBank — despite its sentiment easing from “bullish” to “neutral” in recent days — is drawing twice the conversation volume it was three months ago.

Professional analysts are firmly in SoftBank’s corner. Per data from Koyfin cited by Stocktwits, 14 of 19 analysts covering SoftBank’s ADRs carry a Buy rating or higher, with an average price target of $59.21 — implying roughly 104% upside from current levels.

Toyota has comparable analyst support, with 13 of 18 carrying a Buy rating, though on markedly different terms: their average target of $24.03 sits approximately 87% below the stock’s most recent close, a figure that reflects just how far the shares have already fallen.

On a valuation basis, Toyota remains the cheaper stock: it trades at roughly 9.7 times forward earnings, compared with 50.6 times for SoftBank.

But in a market captivated by AI’s long-term promise, the premium investors are willing to pay for the future has rarely been more apparent, or more ruthlessly applied to those without a seat at the table.