Japan’s Sony Corporation has announced its quarterly results on Friday which came lower than the expectations because of declining gaming business which was booming previously. The acquisition of EMI, though to some extent, pushed the results to a onetime gain of a record high.
Sony, once was making most of its profits from its consumer electronics business like television sets, but due vulnerability of that segment to see higher price competition, company is battling with the losses in that segment. But out of that struggle, company came up rediscovering itself as an entertainment company that has now been generating revenue from gaming and music content very constantly.
But gaming business is incline towards a slowdown with its popular PlayStation 4 (PS4) console is near to be completed its lifecycle and for the reason now investors are looking for the Sony’s next profit making segment.
In the quarter, sales of hardware declined to 8.1 million units which is in line with the company’s expectations for a gaming console company has been selling for last six years, Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s Chief Financial Officer, said at an earnings briefing.
Company for October-December quarter reported rise of 7.5 percent in its operating profit which came up to 376.99 billion yen ($3.46 billion) for which average of 10 estimates compiled by Refinitiv was 383.67 billion yen.
In the late last year, Sony completed its acquisition of EMI for $2.3 billion which brought the company a title of world’s largest music publisher and that factor also boosted the company’s profit in the fourth-quarter whereas profit in the gaming business saw decline of 14 percent because of the shrinking sales of PS4 console to which popularity of company’s exclusive titles like “Marvel’s Spiderman” also remained failed to be offsetting.
Profit outlook for imaging sensors was also cut by the Sony for lowering global demands of smartphones but company maintained its annual profit forecast of 870 billion yen.
