SoftBank Overtakes Toyota to Become Japan's Highest Market Cap Company

Odaily Planet Daily Report AI demand has driven the Japanese stock market to historic highs, and on Monday, SoftBank surpassed Toyota to become the company with the highest market capitalization in Japan. With its significant exposure to ChatGPT developer OpenAI and broader ambitions in the AI field, SoftBank has transformed itself into a vehicle for the current wave of investment frenzy sweeping the Japanese market.

SoftBank has risen nearly 73% so far this year, hitting another record high on Monday with an increase of over 8%, following the company's commitment to invest up to 75 billion euros in France to build a massive network of AI computing clusters. Its market capitalization has now exceeded 46 trillion yen (approximately $288 billion). Toyota's market cap was slightly above 48 trillion yen at last Friday's close, but it fell nearly 4.5% on Monday, dropping below 46 trillion yen. The automaker had surpassed telecom group NTT Docomo in this metric in 2003 to become Japan's most valuable company. (Jinshi Data)