Gaming giant raises FY sales guidance

sony The company on Thursday raised its full-year sales outlook and posted operating profit that beat analysts’ expectations after a strong quarter in its gaming business.

Here’s how the company performed in the September quarter compared to LSEG’s consensus estimates:

• Sales: 2.97 trillion yen ($19.4 billion), compared to the expected 3.03 trillion yen. The increase was 9%, slightly below analyst expectations.
• Operating income: 445.1 billion yen ($2.91 billion) compared to the forecast of 336.07 billion yen. This is a 73% increase year-over-year and exceeds expectations.

The Japanese technology giant has revised its sales target for fiscal year 2025 slightly upward to 12.7 trillion yen. The company had previously targeted sales of 12.6 billion yen. Sony also expects full-year operating profit to be 1.3 trillion yen, as expected previously.

This is because Sony has found strength in the games and network services sector, which includes the popular home game console brand “PlayStation.” The company’s game and network service sales increased 11% from the previous year to 1 trillion yen.

Sony’s games division continues to do well thanks to the shift to digital game purchasing and its PlayStation Plus subscription service. However, hardware shipments proved lackluster as the console market slumped due to a lack of hyped triple-A games.

However, analysts expect the situation in the gaming sector to improve next year. In particular, this is thanks to the anticipated release of the next-generation Nintendo Switch model and the release of Grand Theft Auto VI.

Sony announced that sales of PlayStation 5 units in the September quarter were 3.8 million units, down 22% from the same period last year. Still, the company’s game software sales for the three-month period rose 28% to 612.3 billion yen.

On Thursday, Sony launched its upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro console, touting a superior graphics card that allows for faster gameplay rendering and new artificial intelligence features that upgrade graphics with sharper images. did.

Analysts say the launch of PS5 with enhanced hardware for the release of GTA VI, one of the most anticipated games of the decade, will increase interest in the PS5. I’m looking forward to it.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that September quarter operating profit increased 73% year-over-year.