An increasing financial balance sheet for PlayStation with 57.1 million PS4s

Sony Corporation today announced its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2016, ended December 31. As you can see in the table below, all profit figures are in black, despite a significant drop in revenue compared to the previous year, mainly due to the Sony Pictures segment.

The attached press release is accompanied by a detailed explanation of the company’s performance during the quarter.

Revenue and operating income (“Sales”) decreased by 7.1% compared to the same quarter of the previous financial year (“year-on-year”) to stand at 2,397.5 billion yen ($20,668 million). This decrease is mainly due to the impact of exchange rates.

At constant exchange rates, revenues remained virtually unchanged from the previous financial year, due to a significant increase in sales of gaming and network services (“G&NS”) and semi- drivers.

For further details on the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on revenue and operating profit (loss), see the notes on page 10.

Operating profit decreased 109.8 billion yen year-on-year to 92.4 billion yen (US$796 million). This significant decrease is mainly attributable to the impairment charge of US$962 million (112.1 billion yen) of goodwill recorded in the photos segment.

As announced on January 30, 2017, Sony has made a downward revision of the projection of future profitability of the cinema business in the Images segment. Due to the revision, it was determined that the entire goodwill of US$962 million (¥112.1 billion) in the production and distribution division of the Pictures segment, including the film business, was impaired. loss of value and an operating loss.

During the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, an impairment charge of 30.6 billion yen related to long-lived assets of the battery business was recorded in the Components segment. During the past quarter, restructuring costs, net, decreased by 1.0 billion yen year-over-year to 5.1 billion yen (US$44 million). This amount is recognized as operating expenses included in the aforementioned operating income.

After these daunting figures which make us understand that the Sony group is not at its best as a whole, it is time for us to focus on the financial results of the division comprising the PlayStation brand. The console shipped 9.7 million units between October 1 and December 31. This carries total shipments at 57.1 million as of December 31. Of these, we already know that (according to Sony’s estimates) 53.4 million units were sold to customers as of January 1st.

A 5.3% increase in revenue was driven primarily by increased sales of PS4 digital software on the PlayStation Network and the debut of PlayStation VR. This was partially offset by price drops in PS4 hardware. Operating profit saw a considerable increase of 24%, mainly due to reduced PS4 hardware production costs and a surge in PS4 software sales. Again, this was partially affected by PS4 price cuts.

Sales increased 5.2% year-on-year (+15% in constant currencies) to 617.7 billion yen (US$5,325 million).

This increase is mainly due to increased sales of PlayStation 4 (“PS4”) software, including network sales and the contribution of PlayStation VR launched in October 2016, partially offset by the impact of foreign exchange rates. and the impact of a price reduction for PS4 hardware.

Operating profit increased by 9.9 billion yen year-on-year to 50.0 billion yen (US$431 million). This significant increase is primarily due to PS4 hardware cost reductions and the aforementioned increase in PS4 software sales, partially offset by the effects of reduced prices for PS4 hardware.

In the current quarter, there was a positive effect of 1.4 billion yen from exchange rate fluctuations.

Following these good results, Sony is revising its estimates upwards for its Game & Network sector with a forecast of 3.1% and remains fixed on 20 million PS4s sold between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017.