Sony have a Profitable First Quarter in 2014

Sony has been struggling financially for years. With their credit rating recently being junked, they’ve have turned to selling off shares in Square Enix and massively restructuring the company in order to improve their chances of turning a profit, which has led to redundancies around the world and selling off some of their most well-known divisions such as the Vaio line of computers.

But now, Sony finally has some good news to share, announcing that between the incredible sales of the PlayStation 4 and the weak Japanese yen, they have had a better-than-expected profit for the first quarter. Sony’s net profit was 25.7bn yen ($250m) in the three months leading up to June 30, 2024 - a figure which is significantly higher than the 3.1bn yen profit a year ago.

The profit was largely driven by “a significant increase in game and network services segment sales, reflecting the contribution of the PlayStation 4″, Sony said in their statement. They also stated that box-office hits such as the recent The Amazing Spider-Man 2 contributed to their success.

Sony’s small financial success story can also, of course be partially attributed to the PlayStation 4, with their gaming division reaching a modest operating profit of 4.3bn yen during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, when Sony’s gaming console division was running at a loss of 16.4bn yen. Sales in the Sony gaming console division rose by almost 96% during this quarter, despite being launched eight months ago in November of last year.

The PlayStation 4’s robust sales led to it taking the title of the bestselling next-gen console earlier this year, beating Nintendo in console sales for the first time in eight years. In March it was announced that Sony sold 2.4 million more console units than their old rivals Nintendo, including home consoles and handheld devices.

Sony also commented that their profits this quarter were boosted by property sales, totalling at around 14.8bn yen. However the company is still far from being finanically sound; Sony still expects a net loss of around 50bn yen ($49m) for the financial year ending March 2015.

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Nic Bunce

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A South African born, London raised Brit living in London. Studied Microbiology at the University of Leicester, and taught English in Japan. Jack of all trades and Master of the Universe...