SoftBank overtook Toyota on Monday to become Japan’s most valuable listed company, ending the carmaker’s reign of more than two decades as an artificial intelligence (AI) boom reshapes corporate Japan.
Shares of the Masayoshi Son led group jumped 14 percent in Tokyo, pushing its market value past Toyota’s for the first time in more than 20 years. The crossover lifted SoftBank above ¥48 trillion, or about 306 billion dollars, against Toyota’s roughly ¥46 trillion. The only previous time SoftBank held the top spot was briefly during Japan’s internet bubble in 2000.
The rally caps a remarkable year. SoftBank shares have climbed more than 90 percent in 2026, and the group recently posted a record net profit of about ¥5 trillion for fiscal 2025, the highest ever for a Japanese company.
“This epoch-making event symbolizes the AI boom,” Kazuhiro Sasaki, head of research at Phillip Securities Japan, told Bloomberg.
The surge rests on heavy bets across the AI economy. SoftBank is raising its investment in OpenAI to about 64.6 billion dollars, positioning it for a stake of roughly 13 percent, while earnings from its chip unit Arm and large data centre projects add momentum. On Sunday it announced plans to invest up to 75 billion euros building AI data centres in France.
Toyota has moved the other way, falling about 10 percent this year. Invesco strategist Tomo Kinoshita said the carmaker has been hit by rising oil prices tied to the Iran conflict, which raise running costs and dampen vehicle demand, even as it funds a costly shift to electric and software driven cars.
Analysts caution that the new ranking carries new risks. SoftBank’s valuation now swings with OpenAI’s implied worth and Arm’s share price, assets it does not fully control, and a reversal in AI sentiment could narrow the gap as quickly as it opened.
