PlayStation 3 sales lift Sony earnings
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 1/31/2008
JAN. 31 | Boosted by surging PlayStation 3 strength, Sony reported earnings gains for its 2008 fiscal third quarter.
Sony recorded 200.2 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in net income for the three months ended Dec. 31. That marks a 25.2% jump from the comparable period in 2007.
Total revenue jumped 9.6% to 2.9 trillion yen ($25.1 billion).
At launch, PS3’s high production costs, partly due to its built-in Blu-ray Disc player, generated significant losses for Sony. But during the last quarter, production cost reductions spurred Sony’s game unit to escape red ink and post 12.9 billion yen ($113 million) in operating income. During the prior year’s comparable frame, Sony’s game division recorded an operating loss of 54.2 billion yen ($509 million).
PS3 hardware sales jumped by 3.24 million units over the prior 2007 fiscal third quarter. That represented the biggest sales increase of Sony’s game consoles, topping the 1.35 million unit loss for the PlayStation 2 and 1.05 million unit rise for the PlayStation Portable. For the entire fiscal third quarter worldwide, PS2 sold 5.4 million units; PSP, 5.8 million units; and PS3 4.9 million units.
Sony’s film and DVD division fared worse, sliding 49.7% to 13.2 billion yen ($116 million) in operating income. The unit was hurt by the fact that it released fewer films than the prior year period. Also, none of the films during the just-ended quarter reached the same heights as third-quarter fiscal 2007 theatrical releases Casino Royale and The Pursuit of Happyness. Yet DVD titles Spider-Man 3 and Superbad were cited as making significant contributions to Sony’s film revenue.
Elsewhere at Sony, electronics churned out mixed results, impacted by competitive retail pricing of HDTVs and computers. Sony electronics overall revenue jumped 10% to 2.1 trillion yen ($18.1 billion). But operating income slipped 7% to 166.5 billion yen ($1.5 billion).
