Japan Softbank Annual Profit Jumps On Smartphone Sales

Softbank, which operates the exclusive network in Japan for Apple Inc's iPad and iPhone, booked an operating profit of 629.2 billion yen ($7.8 billion) in its last business year.

That compares with an average estimate of 612.8 billion yen in a poll of six analysts taken after the March 11 earthquake by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For the current financial year through March 2012, Softbank, which competes with Japanese wireless operators NTT DoCoMo Inc and KDDI Corp , did not give an operating profit forecast. The average estimate from analysts is for a 676.7 billion yen profit.

Many companies in Japan have decided not to give profit forecasts in the wake of the March disaster.

As of the close of trade on Friday, shares of Softbank had lost a little more than 1 percent since March 11, outperforming a nearly 4 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei average . ($1 = 80.630 Japanese Yen) (Reporting by James Topham; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Edmund Klamann)