Sony Sony who appears to have the best TVs out there appears to be on a roll due to non-hardware sales after delivering a surge in profits, the bad news is that Sony PlayStation console sales are down double digit.
Late yesterday in Tokyo Sony revealed a full-year profit forecast as its April-June net profit grew 6.5% on the year, boosted by gains in its entertainment business including games and music.
TV and audio hardware sales were up 29%.
The bad news was that gaming hardware sales were down year over year, from 3.3 million to 2.4 million units, which finance chief Sadahiko Hayakawa attributes in part to an increase in first-party software sales and the impact of foreign exchange rates.
The good news was that new Sony games software and increased PlayStation Plus subscriptions, led to a 12% jump in gaming revenues for the year.
Sony also revealed that PlayStation had clocked 116 million monthly active users during June, which is the highest recorded for this time of year (even though it’s down from the 118 million from last quarter).
Recently Microsoft revealed that Xbox console sales had fallen 42% as gamers moved to PC gaming and hand-held devices.
Like Sony Microsoft is punting on software and Xbox Game Pass and Cloud Gaming services, along with first-party software releases to boost revenues.
Back in November 2023 PlayStation, released a slimmer PlayStation 5 with more storage but despite the release of the new console demand for new consoles isn’t as high as Sony expected.
Sony Group President Hiroki Totoki, speaking at a news conference after the earnings were released, called attention to the direction of the U.S. economy following recent stock market turmoil.
“My greatest concern is whether the economy, the U.S. in particular, will weaken as a result of these changes,” Totoki said. “I will be watching this closely.”
U.S. employment figures that came in worse than expected on Friday sent U.S. and global stock markets into a tailspin.
“The global economy itself is now being driven by the U.S. economy, especially consumption, so I think the most important thing for our business is the U.S. economy, especially consumption trends,” he said.
“There are some signals of a slowdown, as indicated by macroeconomic figures,” he added. “It is difficult to predict how deep it will be and how long it will last, but we will continue to monitor these signals carefully.”
Totoki also confirmed Sony’s decision to not make a new bid for Paramount Global, saying Paramount is “quite a large company” and an acquisition is not suitable when taking into consideration both the risk of such a move and the allocation of Sony Group’s management resources.
