Sony said sales of its flagship PlayStation 5 console totaled 20.8 million units in fiscal 2023, slightly below the already revised target of 21 million units.
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Sony on Tuesday announced a 7% decline in its annual profit in fiscal 2023, hurt by a decline in its financial services division.
The company also narrowly missed its forecast for unit sales of its flagship PlayStation 5 gaming console for the full year.
Here’s what Sony did in the March quarter versus LSEG consensus estimates:
- Revenue: 3.5 trillion yen ($22.4 billion) versus 2.89 trillion yen expected. That represents a 14% year-over-year increase, but the first decline since Sony’s September 2020 quarter, according to LSEG data.
- Operating profit: 229.4 billion yen versus 236.81 billion yen expected. This represents a 57% jump year-on-year.
The Japanese gaming giant reported 2023 revenue of $13 trillion, an increase of 19% year-over-year.
However, Sony’s operating profit for the full year was 1.2 trillion yen, down 7% year-on-year.
Sony narrowly missed its revised low target for PlayStation 5 sales. The company said sales of its flagship console reached 20.8 million in fiscal 2023.
This is slightly lower than the revised target of 21 million units that Sony presented to investors in February. Before that, the company expected its PS5 console to sell 25 million units for the full year.
Sony expects weaker sales of up to 18 million units of its PS5 in the year ending March 2025, a company executive said, according to Reuters.
This comes after Sony on Monday announced a management change at its gaming unit Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), with interim division CEO Hiroki Totoki becoming president of the company.
Longtime Sony executives Hideaki Nishino and Hermen Holst have been appointed CEO of Platform Business Group and Studio Business Group, respectively – two newly created divisions of SIE.
Sony said its financial services business was the main segment that led to lower profits.
In 2023, operating income in the financial services unit reached 173.6 billion yen, representing a 22.5% year-on-year decline after a flat increase in 2022.
The company also suffered a decline in its imaging and sensing solutions (I&SS) business, which includes its imaging chips.
Sony’s I&SS business reported operating income of 193.5 billion yen, down 9% from 2022.
Sony said it expects a decline in the group’s total revenue for the current financial year. The company expects sales to reach 12.3 trillion yen for the year ending March 2025, down 5%.
Sony said in its consolidated results that total operating income for fiscal year 2024 is expected to reach 1.28 trillion yen, an increase of 5%.
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