Sony’s earnings report has come in and things aren’t looking too bright. Although in good news, its games division is a bright spot in the darkness as it made some gains.
Here are the details:
* Sony revised its profit projections down to an additional 39% for the fiscal year (April 1, 2008 till March 31, 2009) which totals for a 59% decrease from their financial performance last year
* Profits for July through September slid 72%! They fell from ¥73.7 billion ($755 million) last year to ¥20.8 billion ($213 million) this year. Operating income fell 90% from last year, falling from ¥111.6 billion ($1.14 billion) to ¥11 billion ($113 million)
* The electronics segment of Sony, which accounts for most of the revenues for the company, declined .6% in sales for the reporting period, dipping to ¥1.7 trillion ($17.4 billion). The slip comes despite stronger sales for Bravia LCD TVs and Vaio PC’s. As Sony noted last week, the yen’s strength in the global market as well as tighter profit margins due to increased competition contributed to the company’s lackluster performance in this area.
* As mentioned above, Sony’s gaming division made some gains during the period. For the quarter, Sony’s gaming division generated ¥269 billion ($2.76 billion), a 10 percent increase year over year. Sony attributed this to rising sales of the PS3 and PSP. The PS3 managed to sell 2.43 million units while the PSP sold 3.18 million units.
* While the PS2 has been a powerhouse for what seems like forever, the system has finally started to dwindle, with sales falling to 2.5 million units this quarter.
* Over the same period of time, the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 by 200,000 units. The Xbox 360 had sold 2.2 million units, which was a 20% increase over last year for Microsoft.
* To date, the PS3 has reached global lifetime sales of 16.85 million units.
* Despite Sony’s game division gaining, it still remained in the red. Sony’s gaming division posted an operating loss for the July through September period of ¥39.5 billion ($405 million). Which is an improvement over last year’s deficit of ¥96.7 billion ($991 million). According to Sony, the tightening of losses is due to a cut in production costs for the PS3, an increase in software sales for the PS3 and strong PSP hardware sales.
* Like a lot of companies during this economic downturn, Sony’s financial services segment took a significant hit the quarter, seeing an operating loss of ¥25 billion ($256 million) and falling revenues of ¥100 billion ($1.02 billion). Conversely, the movie business performed quite well–with sales increasing 3.4 percent to ¥196 billion ($2.00 billion)–on the strength of Hancock, Step Brothers, and Pineapple Express.