The Sony group recorded a net profit of 809,000 million yen (5,700 million euros) between April and December, the first nine months of its fiscal year. The results represent an increase of 4.9% year-on-year, according to the financial report published this Thursday and collected by Efe.
The Japanese technology and entertainment multinational recorded an operating profit of 1.08 trillion yen (7,614 million euros) in the period, 1.5% more than in the previous year, thanks to the closure of various lawsuits and the recovery of losses associated with the illegal removal of funds from your insured leg.
Sony’s sales turnover increased by 10.7% in those months, up to 8.48 trillion yen (59,780 million euros), which the company attributed to a significant increase in sales in its video game, music and image branches. .
Sony managed to maintain growth
To this was added the improvement in performance, especially of its video game branch, the one with the greatest weight in its accounts, as well as in music and image, which managed to compensate for a poorer performance of the conglomerate’s film branch, especially in its third fiscal quarter, from October to December.
The absence of Sony box office releases at the end of last year, as happened in the same quarter of 2021 with “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Venom: There will be slaughter”, resulted in a 28% drop in sales of the segment and 83% in its operations, which weighed heavily on its accounts from October to December, when the company’s net and operating profit fell.
Sony maintained accumulated growth thanks to a “significant increase” in its video game and music businesses that managed to reduce the quarterly drop. After a certain slowdown in the development of the gaming branch due to the absence of the boom caused by the covid-19 pandemic and due to the increase in production costs, this segment increased its operating profit by 25% due to the 53% increase of sales in the three months ending in December.
Sony attributed this increase to a greater sale of consoles, which was affected in previous months by the lack of stock that it has been correcting, as well as games from its internal studios and also from external developers. Regarding Sony Music, its operation increased 14% in those months and its sales 23%, thanks to a higher volume of sales linked to streaming subscription services.
Regarding its forecasts for the entire financial year of 2022, which will close at the end of next March, Sony improved its estimate of net profit, up to 870,000 million yen (6,140 million euros). The figure is 3.6% better than that calculated last November, but it remains 1.4% below what the group pocketed in the previous year of 2021.
Sony also improved its operating profit forecast, up to 1.18 trillion yen (8,330 million euros), which would mean 1.85% less year-on-year, but reduced its sales estimate, up to 11.5 trillion yen (81,160 million euros), which would continue to mean 15.9% year-on-year more than in 2021.
