Sony’s profit falls 10% to 4.8 billion euros between April and December – Observer

Japanese technology and entertainment giant Sony announced, this Wednesday, a 10% year-on-year drop in profits between April and December, to 781.6 billion yen (4.8 billion euros).

Like most Japanese companies, Sony’s current fiscal year runs from April 1, 2023 to March 1, 2024.

The conglomerate, headquartered in Minato, one of the neighborhoods that make up the Tokyo metropolis, justified the drop in profits with the poor performance of the image sensor segmentaccording to a statement.

Operating profit in this sector fell 8.8% and sales decreased 3% in the last nine months of 2023, compared to the same period in 2022, due to the drop in television sales, a trend that Sony believes will continue.

Additionally, the company mentioned the life insurance business performancewhose accelerated growth during the Covid-19 pandemic was not maintained.

In fact, Sony announced that it will separate the financial segment, including insurance, from the rest of the conglomerate by 2025.

The group recorded earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and restructuring or leasing costs (EBITDAR) of 1.44 billion yen (8.9 billion euros), 5% less than in the same period of 2022 .

Sony’s operating profit between April and December also fell 15% compared to the same period last year, to 979.4 billion yen (6.1 billion euros).

This is despite the conglomerate’s turnover increasing 20% ​​to 9.54 billion yen (59.1 billion euros), mainly due to Sony’s video games and music, which benefited from favorable exchange rates.

The turnover of video game areawhich represents 30% of the group’s total sales, grew 23.3%, mainly due to games for the PlayStation 5 console.

Also the recipes music sector of Sony rose 15.3% due to the profitability of ‘streaming‘ (transmission via the internet).

The devaluation of the Japanese currency, the yen, against the US dollar, favors large exporting groups, making products more competitive abroad and increasing profits obtained abroad.

O cinema businessheavily hit by the pandemic, showed signs of improvement and increased turnover by 7.5% in the nine months to December, thanks mainly to licenses for online platforms and subscriptions to the ‘anime‘ (Japanese cartoons) Crunchyroll.

Sony said it expects a net profit of 920 billion yen (5.7 billion euros) in the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, which will represent an increase of 5%.