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SONY SAID ON Thursday it saw a €194 million first-quarter net profit thanks to brisk sales of its PlayStation 4 console and a weak yen, but said it still expects a full-year loss.
The company’s net profit came to 26.8 billion yen (€194 million) for the three months through June, up from 3.1 billion yen a year earlier, with sales rising 5.8 percent to 1.8 trillion yen.
The gains were largely driven by “a significant increase in game and network services segment sales, reflecting the contribution of the PlayStation 4… as well as the favourable impact of foreign exchange rates”, Sony said in a statement.
A weak yen boosts the profitability of Japanese exporters such as Sony.
The consumer electronics giant also said box-office hits, including “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″, boosted results at its movie unit, which includes a Hollywood studio.
Sony, which has been undergoing a painful restructuring after years of losses, still expects a net loss of 50 billion yen on sales of 7.8 trillion yen for the fiscal year through March 2015.
The firm said it more than doubled operating profit in its television segment thanks to strong sales of flat-screen televisions in Asia and Europe.
The news comes despite Japanese manufacturers suffering badly in their TV divisions as razor-thin margins and fierce overseas competition hammers their finances.
Sony said its smartphone business saw an operating loss of 2.7 billion yen due to growing marketing costs as the business struggled in Japan, where Apple’s iPhone dominates.
Despite the upbeat results, analysts warned that the positive impact of a weak yen was fading, and said Sony along with rivals Panasonic and Sharp must speed up their corporate overhauls.
“Japanese electronics makers can’t expect much from the impact of a weak yen for the current fiscal year,” said Yasuo Imanaka, analyst at Rakuten Securities.
“Sony is now heavily relying on its entertainment, music and insurance businesses.
“They have to speed up the pace of their restructuring, which is crucial for its survival. Otherwise, investors will lose their patience.”
Panasonic is due to announce its latest earnings later Thursday.
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Phones: Quick throw some more specs on the phones (its a spec race right?….30MP no no make it a 40MP camera). Release a dizzying amount of handsets multiple times a year without doing any customer development to see what they actually want or need and then throw it all at the market and hope something sticks. Wonder why they’re not in profit from this strategy.
Did you even read the article? Sony loss of earnings in the mobile market is down to the growth of Apples market share in China, which started selling in China this year.
And there is a specs race, because that’s what consumers want, the latest and greatest, this is what drives a company. If they didn’t invent and make better, no one would buy anything.
In fact, I’m actually surprised Apple is still in business. They literally churn out the same phone, year on year, which the spec is at least a year behind any other manufacturers.
The likes of Sony are always pushing the envelope, developing and manufacturing the latest and greatest, and of great quality too, that people want.
Actually Sony never really did that with phones unlike Samsung. They just made bad phones.
A 20 million loss isn’t that bad.
They sucked at marketing the PSP – something that could have brought in a lot more bacon than normal. Same goes for the Go and the Vita. I support Sony but when they don’t market their products as much as they should, I’m not surprised they’re at a loss still.
It’s as if they didn’t want the revenue.
They about 80 million PSPs its only considered a failure because the DS was such a juggernaut. It was also rife with piracy which meant its software sales were poor. Vita is a disaster though but that’s mostly down to a lack of compelling games rather than poor marketing. I’d also argue is a little too powerful for a handheld
Fair point with the DS. No excuses for the Vita though IMO. It’s much more than a handheld that connects to the PS4, but Sony aren’t putting enough effort into it.
It’s caught in an inbetween land, doesn’t provide the graphical oomph of a console but is too graphically proficient for games to be cheap to develop. Couple that with the small install base and suddenly nobody wants to make a game for it. Its caught in the console death spiral and Sony aren’t willing to support it enough to have it limp along. For a similarly struggling console atleast you know that Nintendo will back the WiiU with quality games until the death, it’s why it still has hope of being viable and the Vita is dead in the water
have your say