SoftBank Group Corp reported first-quarter earnings that exceeded market forecasts, driven by substantial gains from its stake in Intel and a rise in ByteDance's share price that boosted its Vision Fund unit.

For the quarter ending in June, the company posted a net profit of 347.3 billion yen (approximately $22 billion), far surpassing the 120.23 billion yen average estimate from analysts surveyed by LSEG. However, this figure marks a decline of nearly 18% compared to the same period last year.

A key contributor was SoftBank's holding in U.S. chipmaker Intel, which generated a 1.3 trillion yen gain. Last year, SoftBank announced a roughly $2 billion investment in Intel, enabling its investment arm, separate from the Vision Fund, to achieve a segment profit of 1.05 trillion yen.

The SoftBank Vision Fund's portfolio, which includes investments in OpenAI and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, saw its asset value increase by $1.7 billion in the first quarter. The appreciation was primarily driven by a $2.2 billion increase in the value of SoftBank's stake in Chinese company ByteDance, which offset declines in the value of firms like PayPay.

The Vision Fund segment recorded a profit of 5.4 billion yen for the quarter, compared to a profit of 451.4 billion yen in the same period last year. The company stated that its investment in OpenAI generated no gains or losses this quarter, a stark contrast to the previous quarter when the Vision Fund booked nearly $20 billion in appreciation, almost entirely from OpenAI's value increase.