Japan's third largest telecom operator Softbank announced that the company inked a deal to buy around 70% of stake in the US-based Sprint Nextel for about US$20.1 billion, according to the company's announcement on 15 October. After the transaction is completed, the combined subscriber base is projected to top 96 million, and the combined mobile service revenue to reach around US$32 billion, making Softbank third among global operators in terms of mobile revenue, only next to China Mobile and Verizon. The deal, which is the biggest overseas acquisition made by a Japanese company to date, is still waiting for the approval by regulatory authorities and is slated for completion in the middle of 2013.