Sony’s PlayStation 5.
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sony Its gaming business posted a strong quarter on Friday, raising full-year sales guidance and reporting an operating profit that beat analysts’ expectations.
Here’s how the company performed in the September quarter, compared to LSEG’s consensus estimates:
- income: 2.97 trillion yen ($19.4 billion), compared with expectations of 3.03 trillion yen. Growth of 9% was slightly lower than analysts’ expectations.
- Operating profit: 455.1 billion yen, expected to be 336.07 billion yen. The year-on-year growth was 73%, exceeding expectations.
The Japanese technology giant slightly raised its revenue target for fiscal 2025 to 12.7 trillion yen. Its previous sales target was 12.6 billion yen. Sony also forecast full-year operating profit of 1.3 trillion yen, consistent with its previous forecast.
Sony, meanwhile, sees strength in its gaming and network services division, which owns its popular PlayStation home console brand. The company’s game and network services revenue was 1 trillion yen, a year-on-year increase of 12%.
Sony’s gaming division is performing well thanks to a shift toward digital game purchases and its PlayStation Plus subscription service. However, hardware shipments underperformed as the console market weakened due to a lack of much-hyped AAA games.
However, analysts expect things to improve in the gaming industry next year – especially thanks to the expected launch of the next-generation Nintendo Switch model and the release of Grand Theft Auto VI.
Sony said its PlayStation 5 sales in the September quarter were 3.8 million units, down 22% year-on-year. Still, the company’s game software sales rose 28% in the three months to 612.3 billion yen. Astro Bot is a new platform game launched for PS5 in September and sold 1.5 million copies in 58 days of release.
Sony unveiled an upgraded version of its PlayStation 5 Pro gaming console on Thursday, introducing a better graphics card for faster game rendering and new artificial intelligence features that upgrade graphics with sharper image clarity.
Analysts hope that the launch of the PS5 will boost interest in the PS5 as the beefed-up hardware is ready for release. grand theft auto 6one of the most anticipated games of the decade.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect a 73% year-over-year increase in operating income in the September quarter. Sony on Friday raised its full-year sales guidance. An earlier version incorrectly described the day. Sony’s operating profit was 455.1 billion yen. An earlier version misstated this number. Game and network services revenue increased by 12% year-on-year. An earlier version incorrectly stated percentages.
