The company hopes to weaken that association. 该公司希望能够弱化这种联系。

SoftBank is listing its telecoms arm; shares in the unit were due to begin trading on December 19th, after The Economist had gone to press. 软银电信业务上市，在本刊付印后，股票定于12月19日开售。

SoftBank Group was expected to raise 2.6trn yen ($23.4bn) by selling off just over a third of the company. 预计通过售卖公司三分之一的股票，软银集团能筹到26000亿日元（234亿美元）。

It is selling 1.76bn shares for 1,500 yen each, making it Japan's biggest-ever initial public offering 公司以1500日元每股的价格出售17.6亿股，让其成为日本有史以来最大的IPO，

and only just shy of the record set by Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce titan in which SoftBank Group owns a stake of about 29%, in 2014. 仅次于阿里巴巴（一家中国电商巨头，2014年软银集团持该公司约29%的股份）。

That is good going for a firm whose earnings have been lacklustre and which faces big challenges. 这对于一家营业额惨淡且面临巨大挑战的公司而言是件好事。

Providing mobile services is a lucrative affair in Japan—prices are far higher than in other developed countries. 在日本提供移动服务是一件有利可图的事 — 其价格高于其他发达国家。

But it is also a mature business and the population is shrinking. SoftBank has a quarter of the market, trailing NTT DoCoMo and au. 但是这也是一个成熟的业务且人口在下降。软银占有四分之一的市场份额，紧随NTT DoCoMo和au其后。

NTT DoCoMo has already said it will slash prices after pressure from the government to lower costs; NTT DoCoMo已经表示政府施压降低成本后将降价；

the other two are likely to have to follow suit. Next year the trio will face new competition from Rakuten, 另外两家可能不得不照做。明年三人组将面临来自乐天株式会社的新竞争，

a Japanese e-commerce giant that is about to become the nation's fourth mobile-network operator. 这是一家日本电商巨头，它将成为日本第四个移动网络运营商。

Other problems are more particular to SoftBank. A service outage lasting over four hours, 其他问题在软银更加显著。12月6日，该公司出现了一次持续四个多小时的服务中断

affecting 34m customers mainly in Tokyo and Osaka, sent its shares down by as much as 6% in trading on December 6th. 主要影响到了东京和大阪的3.4亿用户，因此其交易股价下跌6%。

And the firm has said it may have to spend money replacing all the hardware in its 4g and 5g networks that it gets from Huawei, one of its main suppliers, 最近，日本跟风表示对华为（华为是其主要供应商之一）的安全隐患担忧

after Japan became the latest country to air security concerns about the Chinese firm. 随后表示或不得不花钱替换掉其4G和5G网络中使用的所有华为硬件。