Sony Corporation has posted its fourth annual loss in five years.
The electronics manufacturer recorded a loss of $1.25 billion for the financial year ended March 31, 2014. The previous year, Sony pulled in a net income of 41.5 billion yen ($406 million).
Despite the mammoth loss, net sales spiked to 7,767 billion yen ($75.4 million), an increase of 4.3 per cent, which Sony attributed to the launch of its latest home console, the PlayStation 4, as well as increased sales of smartphones.
The format holder also found success in its software sector, with year-on-year sales up 38.5 per cent to 979.2 billion ($9.6 billion).
While the PS4 has continued to perform exceptionally well for Sony – with seven million sales globally to date – its costly launched contributed to the game division’s 8.1 billion yen operating loss.
Meanwhile, Q4 saw the sale of 3.7 million PS4, PS3 and PS2 hardware units; a notable increase over the same period last year, when Sony posted 3.4 million sales. In total, the corporation flogged 14.6 million consoles in its latest FY, which failed to match the previous year’s 16.5 million.
Over on the handheld front, Sony confirmed it had moved 700,000 PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Vita TV units in Q4. This compares to the 1.3 million sales posted in FY12/13.
Finally, 91 million software units spanning all major formats were sold during the financial quarter, marking an increase from the 79 million posted the previous year. In terms of full-year performance, Sony recorded sales of 374 million, again up year-on-year from 266 million.
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