SAN FRANCISCO—SoftBank Group reported first-quarter net profit of 347.3 billion yen, or approximately $2.2 billion, for the period ending June 30, more than doubling analyst expectations of 166 billion yen, or about $761 million.
The result still marked an 18 percent decline from the same period a year earlier. But the gap between expectation and outcome was almost entirely explained by one position: SoftBank's stake in Intel, which generated a 1.3 trillion yen, or $8.2 billion, investment gain after Intel shares more than tripled during the quarter.
SoftBank's Vision Funds contributed as well. A rise in the carrying value of the company's ByteDance stake—the parent of TikTok—helped offset weaker returns elsewhere in the funds' portfolio.
The quarter illustrates SoftBank's structural reality: a handful of concentrated bets routinely determine whether any given period looks like a success or a failure. Strip out the Intel gain, and the print would have missed consensus by a wide margin.
