Thank you very much for waiting late, everyone. Welcome to the SoftBank Group Corp. earnings results announcement for the nine-month period ended December 31, 2021. First of all, I would like to introduce today's participants. From left, we have Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO. Yoshimitsu Goto, Board Director and CFO. Kazuko Kimiwada, Senior Vice President and Head of Accounting Unit. Today's announcement is live broadcast over internet. Now, I would like to invite Mr. Son, Chairman and CEO, to present to you the earnings results and business overview. Mr. Son, please.
Thank you very much. This is Son speaking. Now, I would like to start my presentation. First, I want you to look at this photo. For the people living in this modern society, I believe that you know what this is. This is photo of microcomputer.
Actually, when I was teens in United States, I was a student back then, studying as a college student in United States, and I encountered this photo of a microcomputer chip, which is the size of one on your fingertip. With this can work as a computer. This is a microcomputer. When I learned about that, actually, my fingers and my hands were shaking. It was very impressive, and that actually was the big milestone for my life as a businessperson. I was very much attracted by the microcomputer. After that, I founded SoftBank. In 2016, we decided to acquire the company, which was playing a very central role in microcomputer chip. This was...
As you can you saw the photo in the very first slides of mine, that was back in 1970, excuse me, 1970, yeah, year 1970s. It was only about 2,250 units of the computing power of CPU. Even 2,000 units, it's quite a large number back then, and that was a very impressive change. When you look at now, only one chip, actually 10 billion transistors are installed. Computing power of CPU has been accelerated along with the increase of the number of units. Like you saw in IBM, which created a large computer, like this room size of computer, and then that this is like a size of the fingertip size of the chip.
That has been improving its capability even further, and almost every electronics that you can think of at the household are using this chip. In this area, Arm is actually taking overwhelming shares in this area. This is a number of Arm-based chips shipped, and actually so far cumulative, 220 billion units. Actually 25 billion per year basis, increasing its shipments continuously. Think back since the human being born, there are lots of stories about the origin of human. But when you say Homo Sapiens born, and there are about 200,000 years passed, and since Homo sapiens born in 200,000 years ago. The cumulative number of human beings since then, I would say about 110 billion people in this 200,000 years.
If you add all that, all those people, I would say 110 billion people. Actually, with this calculation, these 110 billion people are having 2 Arm per person. Arm has been shipping such a number of chip to the world. Actually, this is twice as much of number of cumulative people or human beings on this earth in the 200,000 years. Right now, we have about 7 billion people on the earth, and we count from the baby to the elders. I would say 30 Arm chip per person are used. This is a tremendous numbers that we are speaking of. AMD, CPU, there are many companies actually that you can think of in, when it comes to the CPU.
Number of CPU, as I believe, Arm is taking a tremendous and overwhelming market share so far. This is a daughter company which we bought back in 2016. Last year we have announced that we're gonna let go because we needed to, due to the COVID situation. That was about 2 years ago, or 18 months ago. There was so much uncertainties how badly the COVID-19 bring us to the world. Back then that we have announced JPY 4.5 trillion monetization program. As a part of that program, because we announced to raise JPY 4.5 trillion over a year, and actually we achieved in six months. As a part of this program, we have also decided to let Arm go reluctantly.
We didn't want it to simply let it go. It was like sold. The partner NVIDIA that tried to have them together and being a shareholder of NVIDIA , then we believe that it is going to be most powerful Arm company that we'll be able to create. Also, we can create the strongest company in the world, and we wanted to become the major shareholder of such company. That is why that we have decided to sell Arm to NVIDIA back then. We agreed, and we announced and to become the major shareholder of NVIDIA, which will be a great position for us.
Since then, in the IT industry, represented by GAFA, those major players in the industry, they all against the idea of such transaction. In addition to that, US government, UK government and some EU countries' government were against the idea of this transaction. Usually, antitrust is claimed if you are merging in the same industry. If in the automobile industry, if you are creating an engine, and if another company is creating an engine, and those two companies merging together, then the engine market share is gonna be monopolized, therefore, the antitrust comes in. However, NVIDIA and Arm is creating completely different thing. It's like engine and tires. We are running the totally different business and two companies merging. Antitrust is actually claimed for this transaction.
I believe in the history of antitrust discussion, this could be the first case to claim the antitrust violations of those such two different kinds of the companies merger. Why do they have to block this transaction? I believe that's how each regulators or those major players in the industry was so eager to block this transaction. That's how Arm was or is strong, or Arm is valuable, because directly, indirectly, those players are using Arm products, which is essential and one of the most valuable company in the industry. That is, I believe, why those concerned parties were against this transaction. Today, we have agreed with NVIDIA to terminate the sale of Arm. From NVIDIA side, they still have some feeling towards this transaction.
We are very much willing to do this transaction. We kept the passion for that. However, government regulators and those major players have been showing a strong position against or block the transaction. Despite our tremendous effort, we decide to terminate the sale or terminate this transaction. In this case, we are heading towards Plan B. Actually, originally speaking, since the acquisition of Arm, we were expecting to take this company public again in 4-5 years later. That has been my comments since the acquisition, because once we acquire this company, we privatize this company and became the private company. After then, we invest in many areas in Arm, and once it's ready, then that we were to aim for the IPO.
That's something that we've been discussing from the beginning of the acquisition of the company. I think timing is actually match to year fiscal year 2022, which is the term till the end of March 2023. From the beginning, actually, we were hoping or aiming to bring this company go public once again around this timing. Actually, we are coming back to the original route. From the merger's point of view with NVIDIA, we were choosing Plan B. Actually, our original scenario was to bring this company go public again. This is the original plan again so that this is a very big announcement so that I wanted to bring this news in the very top of my presentation. This is the highlight for my presentation today.
Arm has been powering the smartphone revolution, smartphone around the world. A smartphone you have, you are using, I would say close to 97%, are actually using Arm-designed CPU. The majority of the smartphone around the world is using Arm-designed chip, and Arm has been powering the smartphone revolution. Going forward, we believe that such Arm product is going to power auto, cloud, metaverse, IoT. A variety of the areas we believe that Arm is going to be used, and that's how they've been evolving itself. Why can we aim for the IPO in five years after the acquisition?
Why I have been saying that we are aiming for the re-IPO of the company in 5 years is because since the designing work starts, and that will take about 2-3 years, and then once the design is complete, then there will be about another two years to for the go-to-market by making this chip to the production. Since we design the chip in 4-5 years, then that you'll be able to see the product itself in the market. Immediately after we acquired the company, it's not the only smartphone. We are very strong conviction that the Arm is going to be used, not only smartphone, but it's going to be used variety of the things.
This computing power's point of view, we have a very strong belief that it has a strong power. Some people say that the Intel CPU is always the strongest in terms of the CPU computing power. However, I wondered, considering the computing power CPU actually is going to be used in even more products. By making preemptive investments in R&D, talents, engineers, we have decided to develop and also expand such field. Starting from this year, we will be seeing such product lines. The seed we made is going to be cherished. Now that we will be able to see the fruit out of our seed. Arm is going to be on the second growth stage. I'm so excited.
I am very excited and happy to see this movement. Arm, my summary here is that Arm will prepare for the most significant IPO in the history of the semiconductor industry. It is going to start its official preparation for IPO. That's something that I wanted to share with you in the beginning of my presentation.
That was the biggest highlight today, but of course, I have to touch upon our performance, business performance. Like I mentioned in the last earnings result announcement, we were in the middle of blizzard storm, and the storm has not ended. In fact, the storm got stronger in the United States and other countries. Although the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic was passed, but now, the long-term interest rate is going to be higher, especially stock price of growth companies are still in the middle of the storm. In fact, many companies saw their stock price hit in the market, especially growing companies that we tend to invest, their stock prices are hit hard. The last year's performance was probably too good for us, but now we are seeing the downward trend.
More important indicator is NAV, net asset value. It's more important than sales and income in terms of accounting, because SoftBank wants to be an investor or investment vehicle. More important than accounting numbers like income and sales is net asset value, whether it's down or up. Let's say the value of a stock price is 100, and if our net debt is 20, then the net asset value is 80. That's the most important number for us. Again, our stock price 100, net debt 20, then 80 is net asset value to us. Whether 80 goes down to 60 or 80 goes up to 120, those ups and downs are more important for us. Since the peak of our performance, we have seen a tremendous loss.
Since our September term last year and December term, in the last 3 months, we saw about JPY 1 trillion loss. That's more important issue that we have to look at, more important than a net income. From that perspective, I keep saying that we are still in the middle of the storm. Since investing, even though we saw some ups and downs, but from broader perspective, the trend is upward, as you can see on the chart. Even though there are small ups and downs, but in a big picture, in a big trend, regardless of who is present, regardless of interest rate. From trend perspective, we believe that we are on the upward trend. In this chart, orange indicates Alibaba, and blue indicates a Vision Fund, and gray is Others. Arm is included in Others.
Vision Fund obviously is going up in the big picture. Vision Fund keeps going up, and Others, little bit ups and downs. The biggest loss we are seeing is Orange. At the peak, the Orange or Alibaba accounted for 60% of net asset value, but now 24%, whether it's good or bad. Alibaba's share price, its impact on net asset value is getting smaller. In the last three months, the biggest driver of the loss was Alibaba's share price. U.S.-China issues are hot in the news, not only Alibaba, but also through Vision Fund, we have invested in the Chinese businesses like Didi. It's like a Chinese version of Uber. Since we invested in Didi, we have seen a huge loss of value.
Vision Fund and Alibaba, I mean, Chinese portfolio that we have through Vision Fund and Alibaba, it accounts for 32% of net asset value. U.S. is going well, and Japan, Asia, Europe also going well. In China, we have seen the biggest loss since the peak in terms of net asset value. By the way, again, we are SoftBank Group whose core business is investment. Another important indicator that we have to look at as an investment company is LTV. Net debt divided by equity value of holdings, that's LTV. Let's say we have net debt 20 of the equity value of holding 100, then the LTV should be 20%. The blue is the holding, including Alibaba and Vision Fund portfolio, et cetera. In fact, almost 90% is listed companies portfolio.
Looking at P&L and balance sheet, it's difficult, sometimes people say, to calculate and value. For me, it's simple. The blue part in this chart is a value of our holdings, and almost 90% of that is listed businesses. Every day, those companies are valued in respective market. For example, Alibaba and other companies invested by Vision Fund in the market, are valued in the market. That's why it's very easy actually to calculate the value because those most of them are listed. If we subtract our net debt, our red portion on this chart, our LTV or loan to value, which is very important, is described here. In fact, I checked four times a day by looking at the most two important numbers, NAV and LTV.
Those are the only two numbers that I look at every day to calculate a value of SoftBank. People would say that SoftBank is really complicating, but for me it's simple because the only two numbers you have to look at is LTV and NAV. In a normal operation and business as usual, 25% or lower should be the LTV. Even abnormal times like financial shock, like Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the red line, if you will, should be 35%. We can't exceed 35% of LTV. At the moment, we are way below 35%, and even below 25% in normal times. That's the level that we want to manage in terms of LTV, and we are lower than that 25% threshold.
Vision Fund plays an essential role at SoftBank Group, and let me touch upon the performance of Vision Fund. This chart describes the performance of Vision Fund since inception of Vision Fund, whether we have cumulative loss or gain that's shown on the chart. If the line goes down to zero line, it means we have lost. Let's say we invested 100 and now the value went up to 120, then the 20 should be the gain. That's how you look at the chart. Every three months, ups and downs, it's important. But more importantly, you have to look at the broader picture to see whether SoftBank Vision Fund has a cumulative loss or gain against the investment they have made. The breakdown is here. Dark blue shows Vision Fund One, which started earlier than Vision Fund Two.
It took 3 or 4 years to start seeing a gain. The light blue shows Vision Fund Two's performance. Vision Fund One's portfolio, as you can see, they have plenty of cumulative gain. Of course, 2 years ago we saw negative numbers due to some issues or challenges like Didi. Since then, they have built up gains and cumulative gain is about JPY 6.4 trillion. The red on this chart indicates China, green Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the blue US. I said earlier that Alibaba stock price went down sharply and that had a negative impact on NAV. Likewise, in terms of Vision Fund, their portfolio companies in China has a negative impact on a Vision Fund performance. Still, from a cumulative perspective, they are not suffering from loss.
Even Chinese companies invested by Vision Fund are still giving them gain. But some gains they had cumulatively have lost. Other than China, consistently those portfolio companies in other regions have built up gain. Geographically, U.S., which is in blue, and China in red, and other markets in green. From market value perspective, China in red is almost equal to the amount of investment that we have. The U.S. and other markets, they have built gains and revalued in accordance to market value. The composition looks like this. In the last nine months or so, our Vision Fund invested JPY 4.4 trillion. Where the money came from, JPY 3.8 trillion out of JPY 4.4 trillion from Vision Fund sale of listed stocks.
For new investment, they use cash from Vision Fund sales of listed stocks. That cycle of resources are running pretty well. The ecosystem works. How much sold? How much still on the portfolio? As of today, listed portfolio companies or Vision Fund in principle invest in unlisted private companies and then they exit and go public. Some listed companies were sold and other companies, they still keep, and that's on this chart. After investment, some companies go public, and JPY 10.5 trillion, and of that, JPY 3 trillion was sold. And that cash from the sales of companies is transferred to a new investment. JPY 3 trillion was used for new investment in private companies or unicorn companies. And Vision Fund, or also known as JPY 10 trillion fund, we had other investors, including ourselves.
In terms of Vision Fund 1, 94 companies were invested by Vision Fund 1, and there were some Uber issues and WeWork issues. Many people would say that SoftBank Vision Fund 1 didn't work well, and other or third-party investors wouldn't like it. We were in a situation where we couldn't get money from third-party investors. We started investment with our own money. That's how we started a Vision Fund 2. In this chart, orange and green are LatAm investments. Overall, SoftBank Vision Fund have invested in 441, and of them, 100 by Vision Fund 1, and 300 either by Vision Fund 2 or LatAm. Vision Fund has been working well, and currently, we are selling some investment and investing into new businesses.
That ecosystem works well with our own money. Vision Fund 2 was started in 2020. Since 2021. In the last 9 months, they have invested in about 240 businesses. Looking at the scale of the funding amount, we are the biggest venture capitalist in terms of funding amount. Other venture capital companies invest in lots of businesses, but Vision Fund uniqueness is investment in companies leveraging AI. In terms of AI related markets, AI related sectors, SoftBank is the number one investor venture capitalist in the world. The companies that we invested have been growing well, and in terms of number of companies invested in 2020, well, since the start of Vision Fund, the number of companies going public has been increasing. Some years ago, I talked about our golden goose and their eggs.
In terms of number of golden eggs, meaning number of companies going public has been going well, going up. This green bar is the number that we achieved in nine months. Only in nine months, not 12 months in fiscal year 2021, 25 companies went public. The number should go up a little bit more by the end of fiscal year. Most of the companies went public. They listed with profitability. After listing in the last nine months, most of the high tech companies stock price were hit heavily. After listing of the companies invested by Vision Fund, after the listing, their stock price are negatively impacted by the market. Again, we are still in the middle of winter storm, like I said earlier, and the winter storm still continues.
That said, I believe that we will see a spring sooner or later, and we keep sowing seeds. Even in the middle of the storm, we begin to see the shooting of the seeds we sow. Steadily, the seeds are growing. That's a pretty much standard presentation of our earnings results announcement. Again, our key message today is Arm. Arm is back. I just said back, but actually I should say Arm is starting the growth stage finally. Actually we are preparing, but the preparation phase is ending. Now that we are on a growth stage, and we are seeing the clear sign of it. This is the revenue chart back in 2018.
Since then, the revenue was relatively flat because penetration in smartphone has been full, so that was a little bit of flat in revenue. However, starting from fiscal 2021, Arm is growing again. This is the second growth stage or golden stage, I would say that the Arm is entering. For this second growth stage, we have preempted several investments. For Arm, what are the preempting of the investment? Because they don't have any factories. It doesn't cost from that sense, but the number of engineers, that's the investment that we have made. To increase the number of engineers, those costs have been increased because we wanted to increase the number of engineers. That's why that affected EBITDA. Revenue was about flat.
We just added the number of engineers. The EBITDA of course declined, so that you can see. Finally here, we start seeing the revenue kick back in again so that those seedings are growing. Starting from this FY 2021, now that we are seeing more and more fruit. As a result, now we are to see the increase in revenue going forward. I believe that we are on a growth stage of revenue.
Of Arm. I knew it from the beginning. I knew it. That's why I said that from the beginning, we wanted to bring this company go public again in five years or so. That was the first day of the acquisition that I was saying so. This is exactly what I have expected in terms of the pace and in terms of the products that we are seeing these days. Like I mentioned earlier, number of engineers being increased with our investments every year basis. That actually pushed the EBITDA down, but finally here that we are to see more and more products coming out from Arm. Why Arm is great company, and why do I believe so? Because Arm has a great high computing power.
If I say so, many people would say Intel should be better in terms of high computing power. Many general public may think that way. AMD in the same group, series of Intel, probably the same, but Arm is actually making its own development, which is the low power consumption. Arm made a very unique development, which is a bit separate type or different type of the evolution. The computing power requires the power, but how can we keep the power consumption low? Of course, that we need to improve each CPU, but if I make it the story of automobile or an engine, the one output of the horsepower should be improved.
However, the number of cylinders, not one, but if you make it double or make it 4x or 8x , you can increase those cylinders. In a car engine, automotive engine, if you have eight cylinders, four cylinders, eight cylinders, sixteen cylinders, you can describe the automotive engine like that. You put it into Arm, the core, which is cylinders, in the case of automotive. From the 1 core, that has been evolved into multi-core. That smartphone as of today, Arm cores, I would say 12 Arm cores are installed, for example. Actually that is increasing from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 to 12. That's how it's increasing. Other than smartphone, like I mentioned earlier, it's been evolved in other area as well.
Why Arm was taking enormous market shares in smartphone area, very much closer to 90, I would say 99%, being used, Arm. Actually, low power consumption is a strong key. I believe you all using a smartphone every day. If your battery die in the middle of the day, you may experience in the past, I have experienced such as well. If your smartphone's battery died in the middle of the day, rest of the day is gonna be disastrous, right? Keeping a battery life long enough is going to be the essential for the smartphone products. If you put it in automotive, four cylinders, eight cylinders, consuming so much gas.
If you eat so much gas, then the owner of the automobile, although you can earn the good horsepower, but you have to the engine eat so much gas, that doesn't really make sense. Why Arm is taking a great share of the smartphone? It's because of low power consumption and improving its high computing power. That is why we believe we were able to take a great market shares in smartphone and same things, same things happening in cloud. The product Arm is providing to cloud, actually about 128 cores of Arm are installed in one chip for cloud. It's like a 128 cylinders for engine. It's like a 10 x of the chip for smartphone. Sometime near future, I would say 256, 1,024 cores.
For one chip, you may see 1,000 to 28 cylinders in the one engine. That's gonna be a tremendous core. That is going to be the strongest supercomputer, for example, that Fujitsu has produced, a supercomputer which is the strongest, and actually they are also using Arm. By having several Arm products, you'll be able to make such a supercomputer. You may say that Intel may be stronger in terms of the capability. If you compare one core versus one core, their core may be better, but actually that ours are even lower consumption with same capability. Now that the cloud is now playing the central role in computer, and actually they require the very good high computing power.
In cloud area, Amazon, which is one of the biggest cloud business player, and now they are also migrating to Arm core system because cloud data center operation cost takes a power. I mean, 60% of the cost, operating cost of such data center and clouds are power cost. Actually electricity is more expensive than chips. If you choose Arm, you'll be able to reduce 40%-60% of such electricity cost. The 60% of the operation cost for the center is the electricity cost. If you use Arm, of course, you'll be able to enjoy the lower power consumption, which reduce your electricity cost. That's why the people are choosing Arm.
Amazon, if once they decide to choose Arm, Microsoft or Google, who are the competitors, Facebook, Alibaba, worldwide cloud major players, they come to Arm one after another. What we've been working, what we are preparing, other than smartphone, those seeds are actually coming to the on the ground. Now, in addition to that, electric vehicle, about the 40% of the costs are battery. With low power consumption, and if you can earn longer distance, that's very important for electric vehicles. That's the one of the biggest and most important agenda for electric vehicle.
If you increase the speed, but at the same time, because you cannot go over the speed limit, so that, at the speed before the speed limit, but still you want to go farther in terms of distance, that's how you like to prepare for the automotive industry. That would be the competition for automobile industry. Actually computing power is the most consuming in terms of power. Now that we are heading towards the EV, electric vehicle era, without Arm architecture, I don't believe that they will be able to enjoy this low power consumption with high computing power. The success in smartphone principles or the concept, the benefit of those can be also utilized and verified in cloud system. Even in the electric vehicles industry, I believe that we'll be seeing the same.
With those two main fields, we believe that Arm is going to be a very powerful and important player. Like I said, 128 cores, 256 cores, 1024 cores. The number of cores in the one chip is going to increase. That Arm is increasing or enhancing high computing power without eating too much power. You know about the Bitcoin, for example. The issue of Bitcoin, there are lots of benefits as well, but also there is a biggest disadvantage for Bitcoin. If you increase number of Bitcoin, you need to do the mining. If you do the mining, you need that eats a lot of power.
Mining of Bitcoin requires so much cost of electricity, and last year actually, the cost for the mining exceeded the volume of the power usage in Sweden, a country itself. That was a kind of articles or the media coverage that we heard. Enhancing or exceeding only by Bitcoin itself. There are lots of other cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin, and I believe with metaverse or in many areas that we are going to see, area which gonna require computing power. Cloud power consumption, for example, 365 times in 30 years in terms of energy demand for cloud. Comparing from 2010, we have spent about 10 years or so, and even then, in 20 years ahead, the demand is going to increase even further.
Not only the Bitcoin, but also autonomous driving, it's gonna require a lot of computing power. Cloud power consumption is going to increase without architecture, because in the coming future, for the power generation, it's gonna be difficult to use, for example, coal and others, so that we need to switch over to the renewable energies. For the global wide, even we had installed the solar panel, but still we believe that we're gonna be in short in terms of the need for the power, because we are expecting so much increase in power demands. I don't think Intel architecture can solve this issue. If not Arm architecture, I don't believe that we can solve this issue.
That's why, like we saw in the great market shares in Arm in smartphone, we believe that Arm is going to be used in the many other areas. In electric vehicle, 250 x of the power demands in 24 years, like you see in Tesla and others. There are many electric vehicles coming in the market, and many of the car operators are switching over to electric vehicle. Once you migrate to electric vehicle, instead of gas, you're gonna use power. Electricity, it's not generated inside of the car. The power company is generating the electricity, and the power company-generated electricity is going to be used in cloud and EV, electric vehicles. Going forward, we believe if not Arm architecture, we believe that it's not gonna be solving such an issue for demand shortage.
The supply shortage. All clouds and autos is going to be switched over to the growth stage. Now that we are facing, we're entering into the second growth stage, finally, and this is be the great timing that we are aiming to bring this company go public once again. A deal with NVIDIA, of course, we are hoping to be able to close that with successful ending. However, this is also a great scenario, not bad at all. As a matter of fact, looking back, probably this could be the better scenario. That's how I want to see in a few years ahead. That's how I think deep in my heart. Now that we are entering into the golden time of Arm, and towards that, management we are welcoming the new leadership for Arm.
We are having a great leadership. They will be assisting and leading the second growth stage of Arm, and more aggressively and also with energetic way that we believe that we'll be able to go to this stage. Simon Segars, who was a great leader, who've been leading Arm for the past great development of Arm business, and he himself would like to pass the torch to the next management, and he recommended Rene Haas as the successor. I myself have met with Rene Haas for several times, and I think he is the one to lead the company. We today decided to appoint him as a leader for the company.
As a right-hand arm for Rene to support him, we have asked Inder to together with Rene to lead the company to accelerate the development of the company. Here on that we actually would like to connect to Rene and Inder.
Thank you, Masa Son, and ohayo gozaimasu, everyone. I am very happy to join you today to talk a little bit about Arm. Myself and Inder will take the next few minutes to give you some more highlights about why we are so excited about Arm's future. Building on what Masa had described regarding Arm, one thing I would like to share with everyone is a very important detail regarding why we believe Arm is the most important computer architecture in the world. It really starts with software. The world's software lives and thrives on Arm. Arm has more developers than any instruction set architecture on the planet. We have more applications than anyone on the planet.
Over 15 million developers, over 10 million apps. We have the world's largest software ecosystem and support every major operating system in the world, including Android, Linux, Windows, FreeRTOS. This is very important, because, as Masa was talking about the future revolution beyond smartphones into the data center and into automotive and other areas like IoT and the metaverse, having a very large software infrastructure is very important. Now, as Masa said, just a bit of history, SoftBank bought Arm, around the 2016 timeframe. At that time, we had a very strong, business in smartphone, but our business in the infrastructure cloud and automotive was just beginning to grow. You can see from the slide here who the partners were, that we were working with in the time, and particularly in infrastructure and automotive, we were really just starting our program.
In the last five years under SoftBank, we have grown our position in these two markets significantly. In the mobile space, we've still continued very strong market share, which we have today. Again, in the automotive space and the data center and hyperscaler, significant growth with many new companies, and you can read the logos here, Broadcom, Ampere, Microchip, Bosch, Renesas, Texas Instruments, and also NVIDIA. Going forward, we are very confident about our growth in these areas, particularly again, we continue to have the very, very strong market position in smartphones, but going forward, our growth in the data center and automotive continue to be very significant.
Now, Masa gave some detail in his presentation as to why, and specifically the fact that when you think about the data center of the future or the electric car of the future, they share many of the same attributes that a smartphone does. That is, they need a very strong software ecosystem. At the same time, they need to be very, very energy efficient. This is a very, very good place for Arm to grow. More importantly, we have very significant proof points already that we are growing. To reinforce the real forces that drive the smartphone economy are the foundations around the data center and the automotive. Again, we understand the recipe, we understand the formula. This is a trend that is being driven by these markets, and Arm is extremely well-positioned to do well here.
More importantly, we should talk about real data, real proof points in the industry that show that we are growing. One that I would like to highlight is regarding AWS. AWS, a number of years ago, launched a processor called Graviton, and Graviton was the first SoC built by AWS for their EC2 or their elastic cloud. Their second generation product, Graviton2, has 40% better price performance over comparable generation versus x86. This is very important because in the data center, there is a very fixed budget for area, a very fixed budget for power. In that area, you want to be able to maximize your performance but not give up anything around price. You can see what the advantages look like for Graviton2 just from a performance standpoint. More importantly are the proof points.
What are customers doing? 48 of the top 50 customers on AWS EC2 use Graviton2. This is proof that not only is the performance data real, but customers are seeing it and customers are using it. At the end of last year, AWS announced their new product, Graviton3, which has up to 25% more performance than Graviton2. The trend continues, for us. AWS is a fantastic partner, a fantastic proof point, but also a very good example of something that we can extend into other markets. Another area to speak about is automotive, and automotive is increasingly becoming a computer on wheels.
It's becoming not only a computer on wheels, but as we move to the transition to fully electric vehicles that are going to be having some level of driver assist, they become not only more complex, but they obviously have to be very power efficient. It's a very good place for Arm. The car has many subsystems, the digital cockpit, the powertrain, the telematics, and of course, automatic driving assist autonomous. All of these four areas use Arm today, and you can see the partners in each one of these areas that have moved from proprietary technology to building system-on-chip using Arm. We are now becoming a de facto standard in cars, with some cars having 10 chips, 20 chips, some as many as 30-40 Arm chips in a single car. That's just today. That number will only increase and grow in the future.
The common software that people will write for these applications, the very power-efficient architecture and a constrained battery make Arm a very, very good solution for this space. Now, with that, I would like to turn it over to my partner, Inder Singh, our CFO, to talk a little bit about some of the financials.
Thanks, Rene, and thank you, Masa, for inviting us to speak on today's earnings call. Hello, everyone. I'm so excited to be with you today as we talk about the next chapter of Arm, our plans to go public, to establish a very strong business model in the coming years as we go public, and continue to invest. In my couple of years here, now two and a half years at Arm, I've been very impressed by the strength of the Arm portfolio of products and what we've been doing in some of these new markets that Masa was talking about and Rene were talking about.
We've been beating, in fact, the 5-year plan we had put together at the beginning of 2020, and we're very pleased with the momentum that you saw in some of the charts that Masa presented. I wanted to just give you some more financial details, just using 1 or 2 slides actually, about our bright prospects for the future, and I'm gonna use mostly this slide to talk through most of my comments. Let me address the first box that you see on there, which is really about the fact that Arm is the undisputed leader when it comes to smartphones. In fact, there's almost a 100% chance that the smartphone that you're carrying with you right now is powered by Arm CPUs. We are that pervasive. We touch nearly 70% of the Earth's population in terms of our various technologies and the products.
In this current fiscal year, in FY 2021, on a year-to-date basis, we have seen our mobile segment revenues grow 29% year-on-year. As I look forward, all of the devices that are powered by Arm in the mobile segment, whether it's the smartphones that you have or increasingly the laptops that you might be using, all of these will be migrating to 5G. Just at the right time, Arm has been rolling out our new version nine architecture. The combination of these two trends, I think, creates enormous AI capabilities in end devices, which frankly for us means there's more Arm content in every single device, and that results in higher revenues. We've just signed a number of licenses for V9 over the last two years, and we think we'll benefit from that in the coming years as a result.
As both Masa and Rene did say also, we're gaining share in data center, and we're gaining share in automotive. In the automotive segment that we have, obviously, as cars become smarter and cars become EV or AV, they require more and more computing power. As we look at the results in the first nine months of this year, we've also been taking share in the automotive segment and that business has actually grown 139% year-over-year, year to date this year. We think that that growth can continue. We think our investments will continue for sure, as that segment evolves and matures over the next several years.
If I think about infrastructure, and you heard Masa talk about our infrastructure business and how important servers, for example, are, and how important the Arm architecture is then at this point in time, the infrastructure segment for us, the revenues grew 65% year to date. These are incredibly strong numbers. The momentum that we've built by gaining share, by entering new markets, by rolling out new products, gives us the confidence to say, as we look at the rest of this year and the full-year basis, and the second box is what I'm now referring to, we're forecasting that our revenues will grow 26% year-on-year in FY 2021. The bottom line is our strategy has been working. We are now forecasting both record revenues and record profits for this year.
In fact, when we grow 26% this year, it'll now be the second year in a row that we'll have grown double digits. We've established a very tight cost discipline at the same time, and as the teams have worked together to prioritize all the different projects that we have, we're now only investing in those products which we think will have the highest ROI. As you saw in Masa's chart, we have now successfully executed a V-shaped recovery in our profitability over the last couple of years. As we look at our business, we see a very highly profitable and cash generative business. If I think about the balance sheet that we have, it is actually a very strong balance sheet, debt-free.
Every year, our gross margins, which are north of 95%, create the cash-generating power that we need to apply against the investments we have to make to grow the company. We are very confident about our ability to invest in our business, to grow the business, and to actually win in these new markets that we're entering. We will continue to innovate for our customers, which is what Arm has always done, and we will do on an accelerating basis going forward. Just on the last bullet that you see here, it's important. We are a new Arm. We have a new leadership team. We're going to be bold about our future. We're gonna execute on a very bold strategy, and we're gonna do it with confidence.
If we do that, then on the next page, what you see is that we will begin to set up a very, very impressive IPO story for our investors in the future. As Masa outlined, we are now preparing to be actually, I think, the most significant IPO in the history of the semiconductor industry. As a company, we have been investing in the projects that we need to be a public company already for about two years. We've put in the systems, the financial processes, we've hired talent, and we're putting the controls in place now. There's a lot of work to do as we look at the next several months.
As we think about an IPO in FY 2022, we feel very confident about our business strategy, and we think about a very successful IPO. With that, Masa, I'd like to turn the microphone back to you, please.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Rene Haas and Inder Singh. I really appreciate.
That is all for today's slides that we have prepared for this earnings call. We want to be the capitalist, vision capitalist for the AI revolution, and I think this is the great new next chapter, and we are preparing for that. The key for that is going to be Arm, that's how I feel. Again, Arm is back, and they are entering into the golden phase. Different from two years ago, our financials are actually in better shape, so we have even more confidence in ourselves for the future. I am so excited, and I am so looking forward to see the next chapter. Thank you very much. That's all for today. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Now we would like to take questions. First, we'd like to take questions from the floor. Please wait for the microphone and start with your name and affiliation. For those who are on the Zoom, please press the Raise Hand button when you have a question after you access to Zoom webinar, and wait for your name to be called. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please make sure to press Lower Hand button. We'd like to take up to two questions per person so that we can take questions from as many people as possible. Now first on the floor.
Nakagawa from Toyo Keizai, I have two questions. First, about Marcelo Claure, who stepped down, and tell us a background of his resignation. The second question, Vision Fund II commitment amount last time was $42 billion something, and it has increased by now. How are we going to make bigger?
Encryption and blockchain and you have started investment in those Web 3.0 areas, if you will. What kind of expectation you have? Thank you.
First, about Marcelo. He led Sprint and WeWork, and those challenges from SoftBank Group were addressed by Marcelo thanks to his tremendous contribution. Our business of SoftBank Group is to become a capitalist of AI revolution. That's the vision we have. Against that background, Marcelo and the SoftBank Group agreed that we are taking separate ways. That's why we decided to let him go. Marcelo is an excellent leader, and I hope that he will be successful in his next chapter of his business life. For SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the contribution exceeds the one that we invested in SoftBank Vision Fund 1.
We want to build up constantly. Our ticket size per business or company is smaller compared to the one in the days of Vision Fund I. We'd like to take actions faster than before. In the days of Vision Fund I, we were looking at 30% of the ownership, and we tended to invest in companies that are close to IPOs. We invested in, like, JPY 100 billion per business. In Vision Fund II, 10%-15% of the ownership that we are looking at per investment in terms of Vision Fund II, it's easier for them to enter the market, for us to enter, excuse me, and also easier to exit. The cycle gets faster and better.
also, like you said, we are looking at Web 3.0, so we want to help revolutionize societies and communities by leveraging AI, so those unicorn companies that we want to help by investing them.
Again, we are running a cycle of selling and buying or investing, excuse me. Once we get gain after listing, we capitalize on that and we invest in private companies. That kind of ecosystem or cycle is what we are running by making sure that we meet financial disciplines, LTV less than 25% in normal times. We have two years' worth of redemption of bonds. So long as we can meet those financial requirements or rules in the company, we believe that we can continue investing.
Next question, please.
My name is Wada from Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei newspaper. Regarding Arm, I have questions. The acquisition cost was JPY 3 trillion. And what is the current value you are looking at Arm? If you are aiming for IPO once again, is it going to be the higher value than you sold to NVIDIA? Is that your expectation? My second question is about again, Arm. I understand Arm is very competitive, but without going public again, would you rather like to keep it as private company? I understand as long as you don't have any financial issue, why do you need to monetize, I mean, go public or by IPO?
Yes. Thank you for your question.
At the acquisition of Arm, that was $32 billion, so it's about JPY 3 trillion and a little bit more. That was a cost we spent for acquisition. A sale to NVIDIA, that was $40 billion, including some performance. 1/3 is cash, 2/3 is to exchange with NVIDIA share. $32 billlion became $40 billion. Out of $40 billion, about $5 billion was the including some performance base. Whether that we'll be able to achieve this performance or that means because we are entering into the second growth stage, so that both revenue and profit actually that we are achieving, we were to achieve. We will be able to. We are in a situation where that we can achieve in fiscal 2021 for this target, for this performance.
In both revenue and profit, we were to be able to have full $40 billion, was to be accomplished. 2/3 of this $40 billion is to be exchanged with NVIDIA share. Once that we close this deal, we were to become the major shareholder of NVIDIA . As of today, NVIDIA share price, cash plus NVIDIA share, that would count for about $80 billion or somewhere close there. When we acquire, it was $32 billion, and even one-tenth of the value that some criticism are there, that was too, even 1/3, it is too expensive. The $32 billion became $40 billion, and $40 billion to become $80 billion with a merger with NVIDIA. That was a kind of a path that we've been seeing.
We don't know yet because it's a market decision how the share price will be after we go public again. It's not my decision, but at least Arm is now entering into its golden phase, its second growth phase. I'm so convinced with such a movement so that we are happy. We believe. We are still happy to be able to have this situation. We don't know the share price will be after we see the market, but two years later, three years later after the IPO, then we believe that we'll be able to see even further growth in revenue, profit, and value.
I think it is going to be a very great years ahead, not only a single year, but we believe that we'll be able to continuously grow for multiple years. Why are we aiming for an IPO? Why don't you keep hold on to it in private company? Right now, 25% of Arm is held by Vision Fund One. Vision Fund 1, actually, as you know, have third-party LPs. For them, as a listed securities value is going to be important. That's one of our missions for the fund. Second of all, for employees, we want to provide a good incentive for employees of Arm, so that and because this company we would like to provide the good compensation or the incentive for the employees who are making hard work for business.
That's why that IPO is a good objective for that. The third of all, because Arm became such an important social infrastructure, even as the one player of the social infrastructure and many of the companies actually using Arm. That's why we believe it's important for the company being more transparent in society, and being a public company can provide such transparency. That's why we are aiming for IPO once again. Actually, from the first day of the acquisition of Arm, actually I was aiming to go public again in five years. That's no change from that time, actually.
Otsubo from Sankei Shimbun. A simple question. About relisting of Arm, which market are you looking at? That's a first question.
Thank you. The U.S., that's the market that we are looking at when it comes to listing Arm. Most likely Nasdaq, but wherever it is, the U.S. is the market that we're looking at for the listing of Arm.
Thank you. Next question from myself. Talking about the metaverse, one of the areas that Arm can play a very important role. Metaverse can be a next internet in terms of being big. Through investment, are you going to get engaged with metaverse? My question is, how are you going to get involved in metaverse or engaged with metaverse? Thank you.
Metaverse is evolving and expanding, and it's going to be a culture or lifestyle. That's how I see a metaverse. For that, elemental technologies are getting there, and I have no doubt about the trend. Through Vision Fund, I think that we invest in companies that play an important role in metaverse. Why? Because they are going to leverage AI in the space of metaverse. Through a Vision Fund, we want to invest in companies that provide a service and a platform for a metaverse.
In order to build metaverse, cloud computing and edge computing are going to be critical, and the demand for them are exponentially growing. That requires a huge computing power. Again, like I keep saying, Arm is going on to the next chapter and golden age, and the metaverse is a welcome trend.
Next person, please.
My name is Sugiyama from Asahi Newspaper. I have a question on Arm. At the six months period earnings, you mentioned that you still believe that you'll be able to receive the regulatory approval on the transaction. This time that you announced to terminate this agreement, in the meantime, there are some legal lawsuits in U.S. and so on, but what was the main trigger for you to come to this termination? Any backgrounds or can you elaborate some colors on it?
Yes. Thank you for your question. In the United States, antitrust lawsuit was becoming more clear by FTC and also U.K., EU. Respective regulators were expressing a strong consideration. In the meantime, we were trying to solve such considerations, and NVIDIA actually proposed several solutions so that we thought such solution can be convincing regulators.
I was actually believing that we'll be able to close this deal. Even despite such discussion and proposals, regulators didn't really buy it. That was the kind of a situation in the past 2-3 months. NVIDIA have recommended to terminate this time. They were also in a strong belief, and we are in strong belief as well to close this deal. We were working very hard, but these past couple of months that we come to this conclusion despite good faith efforts by two parties.
Sandra from Nikkei Business. I have two questions, both of them related to Vision Fund. First, as of end of December, you were under the financial discipline in terms of investment. In January, talking about the stopping, slowing down investment or other indicator than the two important indicators that you may want to look at. Again, that was the question I want to ask you about your position to Vision Fund. Thank you.
First, in principle, we invest by making sure that we meet financial rules, disciplines, and looking at the market. In fact, not only SoftBank Group, but other venture capitalists are looking at the market and private companies' value or valuation of them, they begin to talk about lowering the valuation of private companies.
Not only SoftBank Group, but other venture capitalists start to renegotiate with private companies. The number of deals might be smaller and the ticket size may be even smaller. At the beginning of last year or mid of last year, compared to those days, since the start of this year, we begin to feel that the ticket size goes smaller and investment size goes smaller. The money required to get into the private business, it's not bad to grow the value of those private companies. We constantly make investment, but speed-wise and ticket size-wise, maybe it's lower and smaller, but we want to make sure that we make investment with our own money.
Thank you. The next question is about, again, Vision Fund. Sometime around the end of December, unicorns held by Vision Fund might be utilized as collateral for a new investment. That was sort of media coverage that I saw at the end of last year. What is your view?
Listed companies or unlisted companies held by Vision Fund, looking at the value of the collateral, we have offers to utilize the value of Vision Fund portfolio companies. We are looking at using the collateral value of portfolio companies for new investment.
Actually, we also need to accept from the Zoom. One person, two persons from the floor and then go to the Zoom. One person, for one question, please.
My name is Goto from Mainichi Newspaper. Termination of agreement on Arm, I have one question. In earlier question, that you said that you may be able to close, but you come to the different result. Plan A, the transaction with NVIDIA in 18 months or so, you had to give up. What is your honest feeling now?
Yes. Thank you for your question. Honestly, I would say I wouldn't imagine that so much key players in the industry and each respective regulators are against this idea of transaction. I believe that NVIDIA feels the same way, that we wouldn't have, we didn't imagine such a big objection. Now, looking back, like I mentioned earlier and explained in the previous slides, that Arm is now entering into the golden stage. Despite or although we couldn't get an approval on this transaction, but Plan B is actually not bad at all. Actually, could be better plan for us. That's how I motivated and how I am excited about the second chapter of Arm.
Yotsu from TV Tokyo. About the Vision Fund investing in Japanese companies, which they do. What's your view on investing in Japanese companies
While investing in Chinese companies is getting a bit difficult. Recently, they invested in two companies in Japan. Leveraging AI is not done well and behind the curve compared to other countries. Now we begin to see companies that are taking advantage of AI pretty well. We began discussion with some potential companies, and we are building a dedicated team to invest in Japanese companies, so we are excited.
One more follow-up question.
Sorry, one person, one question. Next person, please.
My name is Hase from TBS TV. Mr. Marcelo Claure resigned last month, and you, Masa, I believe that one of the important agenda is to find a successor of yours. As of today, how do you feel about it, and what is your future direction on your successor?
Yes. I still believe that it's very important agenda for me to find a successor of mine. I will find it, and I will raise this person. But not right now. Having said that, I myself is very much motivated in Vision Fund and Arm. Every day is so exciting. I'm having so much fun. If I retire, giving up all such fun, that's gonna make me a very old grandpa. Right now, I still wanna work in active way.
My health issue, the other day, I played bowling, and I throw the ball several times, and I scored more than 200 for two times, 2 games. I'm in 60s, amateur, just play once in a while and scored 200 or more in 2 games. I don't find many of such same age player around. I think it's quite a good speed in bowl, so that I think I am still young. I think that I am still doing good. I'm proud of myself that I am still doing great, in great figure. In management or in business, I'm still having great fun of managing the business.
Of course, I will explore the successor, but I still want to keep having a good time here. So, I will look for the successor for sure.
The last question from the floor.
Suzuki from Nikkei Asia. Thank you for taking my question. About Alibaba's forward exchange contract. In my understanding, cash settlement option and share settlement option were there. The cash settlement option, I think you did it for the first time recently. Since listing of Alibaba stocks, I don't think you did capitalize on that.
Well, we still have about 25% of holding, so only fraction of the holding was capitalized in cash. Of Alibaba shares that we have, 90-something% we still keep. Only a few percentage, we have done cash settlement, and we got a cash. That, cash can be recycled to a Vision Fund investment. For SoftBank's shareholders and SoftBank's management, I think, it's good to have that kind of option.
Thank you.
Sorry to keep you waiting. For those Zoom participants, I would like to take a question from the Zoom participants. To avoid any echoing, please make sure that you only connect to Zoom. Otherwise, it's gonna make an echo. Ichikawa-san from Yomiuri Shimbun, please unmute and start your questions.
Yes, this is Ichikawa from Yomiuri Shimbun. Thank you for taking my question.
Is it only one question? Yes, please. Just one question per person.
IPO on Arm is my question. Fiscal 2022 that you aim to go public, and after that, how much are you going to hold on to? We are expecting, or you're expecting, that very much good success in Arm, but are you going to be long holder of Arm?
Thank you for your question. I'm so convinced that Arm is coming to the golden age, so that we don't want to sell too much. That's my feeling, honest feeling internally, for me. The Vision Fund, we have, as I mentioned earlier, third party investors because Vision Fund is a 25% holder of Arm and 75% are held by us. Out of Vision Fund, about half of the gain will come back to SBG, SoftBank Group. Considering the balance of those, we would like to decide how we should be.
Next question. Anthony from Financial Times, please unmute and speak.
Thank you. I have a question to Masa. You mentioned that most likely in Nasdaq, that's the market that you're looking at for Arm's IPO. Arm is U.K. company, so not, why not London? Why U.S.? Is it because of the size of the market and the internationality of the market? Why U.S., not, U.K.? Thank you.
I would say users or customers of Arm, most of them are in Silicon Valley, and that investors show strong interest in Arm, that's what I heard, in the U.S. From that perspective, U.S. Nasdaq, which plays a key role in the high-tech sector, might be most suitable. Or New York, but, Nasdaq is in the center of a high-tech industry. At the moment, we are looking at Nasdaq, but it's, nothing is decided.
At least we plan to make Arm go public, but most likely Nasdaq, but nothing is decided yet.
Thank you. In the interest of time, this will be the last question.
Thank you very much for your participation. This concludes the SoftBank Group Corp. earnings results announcement for the 9-month period ending December 31, 2021. This video footage of this meeting will be distributed on demand from our corporate website. Thank you very much for staying with us.
Thank you very much again for joining the SoftBank Group Corp. earnings results announcement for the 9-month period ended December 31, 2021. This concludes the meeting.