Sony sold through a combined total of 3.5 million PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 2 units for the financial period April 1 – June 30, the electronics giant confirmed today.
In addition, the Tokyo-based company moved 0.75 combined PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Portable units.
The format holder posted an annual sales increase of 95.7 percent, reaching 257.5 billion yen ($2,550 million), while operating income topped 4.3 billion yen ($43 million), a significant improvement over last year’s 16.4 billion loss.
Outside of its games division, Sony as a whole posted 69.8 billion yen, which marks a significant growth from the same period last year. The company attributes this to the success of PS4 and the Games and Network Services division, resulting in a return to profitability for the firm.
Warren Ruhomon, an analyst with Finspreads, commented:
“The Sony earnings are very much a tale of two stories; strong gaming and weak smartphone sales. The timing and success of Playstation 4 has helped to diversify revenue risks associated with weaker demand for smartphones. Emphasising the fall in demand for smartphone, Sony cut its smartphone sales target for the fiscal year by 14% to 43 million having admitted that the previous target of 50 million sales was slightly aggressive.
"In this sense, Sony is relying on success of Playstation 4, Sony games and networks to drive activity going forwards as the outlook for smartphone demand becomes rather clouded, and its therefore good to see success on this front with revenue from this area doubling.”