Tokyo, Aug. 6 (Jiji Press)--SoftBank Group Corp. said Thursday that its consolidated net profit fell 17.7 pct from a year earlier to 347.3 billion yen in April-June, weighed down by a weaker yen. The Japanese technology investor, which holds a large amount of dollar-denominated debt, logged a foreign exchange loss of 146 billion yen, expanding from 143.2 billion yen a year before. In the quarter, SoftBank Group's revenues rose 10.9 pct to 2,019.5 billion yen. Its investment profits nearly quadrupled to 1,859.3 billion yen, reflecting a rise in the stock price of U.S. chip giant Intel Corp. Meanwhile, Its SoftBank Vision Fund business, which invests in startups, saw a sharp profit decline. Its British chip designer unit, Arm Holdings PLC, logged a larger net loss from artificial intelligence-related operations due to higher research and development costs after hiring more engineers, although its sales grew on AI-related demand. At a press conference on Thursday, SoftBank Group Senior Vice President Yoshimitsu Goto said that earnings from AI-related operations are expected to improve. "The market for CPUs for data centers will continue to grow," Goto said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]