Despite a strong launch of its new PlayStation 4 games consoles, Sony hasn't been able to show a profit in the year to March 31st 2014. It made a ¥128.4 billion net loss for the 2013/14 in fact.
In fact consoles sales were down compared to the same period last time - and handheld sales are predicted to be slashed for the coming period.
On the upside, this was below the ¥130b loss it had predicted. However, a loss is a loss and this forced Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida to tell analysts and investors that, "We'll make this a year of biting the bullet on restructuring".
This means that, according to Reuters, Yoshida stated, "In previous years the restructuring was mostly within business units and in manufacturing," he added. "This time the difference is that we are quitting businesses entirely."
Its gaming business might be one of them though. Despite the official Sony statement making it clear that, "Sales and operating revenue (“sales”) were 7,767.3 billion yen (75,410 million U.S. dollars), an increase of 14.3% compared to the previous fiscal year (“year-on-year”). This increase was primarily due to the favorable impact of foreign exchange rates, the launch of the PlayStation®4 (PS4TM), as well as a significant increase in sales of smartphones," gaming sales were not stellar.
The facts are that combined sales of PS4 and PS3 hit 14.6m units (7m were PS4s) but this was actually down year-on-year from 16.5m.
On the portable front, Vita, Vita TV and PSP sales also fell from 7m last year to just 4.1m. Q4 sales fell from 1.3m to 700k.
Worse still, Sony foresees further decline in the handheld market with sales forecasts slashed to 3.5m units next year.
In fact consoles sales were down compared to the same period last time - and handheld sales are predicted to be slashed for the coming period.
On the upside, this was below the ¥130b loss it had predicted. However, a loss is a loss and this forced Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida to tell analysts and investors that, "We'll make this a year of biting the bullet on restructuring".
This means that, according to Reuters, Yoshida stated, "In previous years the restructuring was mostly within business units and in manufacturing," he added. "This time the difference is that we are quitting businesses entirely."
Its gaming business might be one of them though. Despite the official Sony statement making it clear that, "Sales and operating revenue (“sales”) were 7,767.3 billion yen (75,410 million U.S. dollars), an increase of 14.3% compared to the previous fiscal year (“year-on-year”). This increase was primarily due to the favorable impact of foreign exchange rates, the launch of the PlayStation®4 (PS4TM), as well as a significant increase in sales of smartphones," gaming sales were not stellar.
The facts are that combined sales of PS4 and PS3 hit 14.6m units (7m were PS4s) but this was actually down year-on-year from 16.5m.
On the portable front, Vita, Vita TV and PSP sales also fell from 7m last year to just 4.1m. Q4 sales fell from 1.3m to 700k.
Worse still, Sony foresees further decline in the handheld market with sales forecasts slashed to 3.5m units next year.
Companies:
Sony
Read More Like This