Sony just disclosed its financial results for the fiscal quarter between July 1st and September 30th 2014, showing solid results for the game division with an operating income of 200 million dollars. The company as a whole unfortunately posted a rather sizable oprating loss of 785 million dollars resulting in a net loss of 1.247 billion dollars.
Despite that, sales were up 7.2% compared to the same period last year, even thanks to the strong performance of the PS4, that also determined a strong increase in income from network services.
And the performance of Sony’s new console is indeed strong, with 3.3 million units shipped in the quarter, bringing the total up to a very flattering 13.5 million, making it the fastest selling console in its first fiscal year of sales.
The breakdown specific to the games division underlines the strong performance of the PS4, matched by a predictable decline of PS3 sales for both hardware and software.
Sales increased 83.2% year-on-year (a 74% increase on a constant currency basis) to 309.5 billion yen (2,839 million U.S. dollars). This significant increase was primarily due to the contribution from PS4 hardware sales, a significant increase in network services revenue related to the introduction of the PS4 and the contribution from PS4 software sales, partially offset by a decrease in PlayStation®3 (“PS3”) hardware and PS3 software sales.
Operating income of 21.8 billion yen (200 million U.S. dollars) was recorded, compared to an operating loss of 4.2 billion yen in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. This significant improvement was primarily due to the impact of the above-mentioned increase in sales related to the introduction of the PS4, partially offset by the impact of the above-mentioned decrease in PS3 software sales.
Interestingly, during the quarter Sony sold 3.3 million PS4 within a total of 4.1 million home consoles, 0.7 million portables and 106 million software units. It’s worth mentioning that Sony listed PS4 unit sales separately this time around, something that the company didn’t do before in its financial documents.
Separate numbers for PS4 sales were provided even for earlier fiscal periods, indicating the total shipments of the console sitting on a very comfortable 13.5 million.
The forecast for annual unit sales for home consoles, portable consoles and software actually remains unchanged from the earlier prediction at 17 million, 3.5 million and 390 million respectively, even if the forecast for gross earnings and operating income has been raised to 1,290 billion yen and 35 billion yen from the previous prediction of 1,240 and 25 billion yen respectively. This is partly attributed to the strong performance of the PS4 and partly to the favorable impact of foreign exchange rates due to the depreciation of the yen.
The forecast of 17 million home consoles in the while fiscal year might actually seem a tad on the conservative side, considering the holiday season and the flood of strong titles and exclusives coming around February.
The company opted to leave the overall forecast for the whole fiscal year unchanged at 7,800 billion yen, with an operating loss of 40 billion yen, despite the fact that some analysts predicted a lower forecast to be announced today.
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