Sony Bullish on PlayStation as It Swings to Profit

Its smartphone arm, the source of losses recently, booked another loss during the latest quarter as expected. On Thursday, Sony said its net profit came in at 116.0 billion yen ($960 million) in the first half of its fiscal year, reversing a 109.2 billion yen loss a year earlier. The operating loss was ¥20.6 billion ($172 million) off revenue of ¥279.2 billion ($2.33 billion), showing that the smartphone business continues to suck money out of Sony even a year after ¥176 billion of its value was written off. Sales are down 15.2 percent year-on-year, which Sony says was the main reason that revenue was flat across the company, and explains as a “strategic decision not to pursue scale in order to improve profitability”. During the three month period, Nintendo made 3.2 billion Yen in net income, which is roughly $27 million. Sony agreed to buy Toshiba Corp.’s image sensor business, the two said this week.

Similarly, the camera sensor division also played an important role in the earnings.

Elsewhere, positive foreign exchange rates and continued growth of PlayStation 4 games were positives for Sony.

The conglomerate held its full-year forecast to March 2016 unchanged at sales of $65.4 billion (¥7.9 trillion) and a net profit of $1.16 billion (¥140 billion). Following wholesaling restructuring initiatives, including slashing thousands of jobs and moving resources and assets away from its loss-making mobile phone and TV businesses, Sony said Thursday it has been steadily redirecting investment into areas likely to trend upwards, including those involved in image sensor-based technology as well as its highly-anticipated virtual reality headset for its ubiquitous PlayStation 4, slated to be released next year. Sony executives have also been focusing on the upbeat video game and entertainment units – including a Hollywood studio and music label – and turning around the long-struggling television division. Regarding the mobile business, the company has not made any revisions to its sales estimates and full year operating profit. Sony’s Chief Financial Officer, Kenichiro Yoshida believes the business is “crucial for Sony” and said that they would welcome Toshiba’s engineers.