PlayStation 4 Hits 100 Million Consoles Sold Milestone, Sony Sees Growth in Image Sensor Business
Japan's Sony on Tuesday reported an 18.4% Growth in
First-quarter operating profit, beating market expectations as a result of a
solid performance in the image sensor business. The business claimed its profit
forecast for the year ending March at 810 billion yen.
It had offered 3.2 million PlayStation 4 consoles
in the second quarter. Adding this to the total consoles sold at the end of Q1,
96.8 million, we see Sony has passed the 100 million console components sold
milestone for its PlayStation 4.
Following two years of record earnings, Sony is
currently facing headwinds in the games industry, central to the company's
recent resurrection. The gaming business is expecting larger costs to come up
with a next-generation console that analysts say will arrive in 2020, since the
five-year-old PlayStation 4 nears the end of its lifetime.
But Larger profits in the image sensor industry,
driven by demand for large-size image detectors and multiple-lens camera
programs for smartphones, offset the weakness in the gambling enterprise.
The semiconductor business, which includes image
sensors, posted a profit of JPY 49.5 billion up from JPY 29.1 billion a year
earlier.
The Gaming business posted a profit of JPY 73.8 billion down from JPY 83.5 billion a year earlier.
For the latest quarter, sales from the company's
movie branch Sony Pictures Entertainment gained by the greater theatrical
earnings from Men in Black: International and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Its
video game industry benefited from greater earnings in its own PlayStation 4
game console, it stated.
Sony's Music unit also improved from the last year
due to the absence of equity losses for EMI Music Publishing listed the preceding year and greater sales, including streaming revenue.
Gains From Spotify have raised Sony's bottom line
in recent months.
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Games