Some news for Sony to be cautiously optimistic about this week, as they posted a healthy profit in their year-end financial report. The ¥43bn (£280 million) profit was the first the company has returned in five years.
It’s probably not all spongecake and party-poppers down at Sony HQ though. The profits are largely the result of two things: massive asset sales like the selling off of their New York and Tokyo office buildings and the comparative weakness of the Yen against the US Dollar.
The Yen is down around 20 per cent on the Dollar since November last year. With this report covering Sony’s financial year, up to the end of March, that drop will have a significant impact on their income for two reasons. Firstly, it makes their products more profitable in the west (or cheaper, if retailers so choose). Secondly, the conversion on western sales income from US Dollars to Yen as it re-enters the Japanese economy is very favourable.
But that’s not to take anything away from Sony as their program of aggressive restructuring of business assets seems to be paying off. Such a positive report in a year when their research and development budgets must surely be taking a spanking at the hands of the PlayStation 4 is something they will likely be quite pleased about.
Next year’s report, which will include the first flush of PS4 sales data for at least one region (and we’re really hoping for all three), will be very interesting indeed.
Source: BBC
Germanos
Good to hear SONY-s situation is getting better.
cc_star
Disappointing
They can’t sell off key assets all the time like in boosting these figures & they can’t count on exchange rates always benefitting them.
Interesting to note PlayStation, which has held its own in Sony group’s woes (ignoring billions lost over life of PS3), was down £180m, as PSP fades, but Vita doesn’t take up its slack.
With Sony going all guns blazing on PS4 from here on out, Vita could get lost in the noise apart from some PS4 cross-sales from people who have a hell of a lot of spare cash they can afford to spend on gaming.
Bilbo_bobbins
Worrying still I think. If they have to sell key assets to keep afloat then its a false positive. They lost billions in the last few years so this wont even touch the sides. Lets hope with Sony really pushing the PS4 and possibly other hardware they can start making an actual profit from sales, rather than assets.
Eldave0
As people have said above, nothing to celebrate here. If you have to sell assets to make a profit something is going wrong. It begs the question how long Sony can continue to haemorrhage money like this and continue trading.
skibadee
for kazs first year in charge this is great.
JR.
Give me an S. S. Give me an O. O. Give me a Y. Y. Give me an N. N. Gooooooooooooooo SOYN!!!! … Oh shit.
spacedelete
Misleading article. Sony has only resulted in profit this year is because they fired thousands from their jobs and sold a few of their headquarters.
The actual profit is half a billion and thats only because of selling their headquarter buildings. Sony unfortunately are still in a really bad financial position.
Peter Chapman
Misleading? Really?
Even this bit: “The profits are largely the result of two things: massive asset sales like the selling off of their New York and Tokyo office buildings and the comparative weakness of the Yen against the US Dollar” or how about the bit just before that where I use an amusing phrase about spongecake to demonstrate that this isn’t simple good news?
How about the bit towards the end there where I state quite clearly that this success is the result of a “program of aggressive restructuring of business assets”?
So… your comment was basically “Misleading article, I didn’t read/understand it.” So, congrats on that ;)
Dr_mohannad
I don’t know why I’m happy but I am..!
cam the man
I hope Sony continue the good work.
JBoo
Well done Kaz(however you did it, & who cares if they sold this & that(why keep things that are not worth keeping anyway & losing you money?!?!) because profit is profit & it looks good to investors) Now i am just worried when MS show their new Console only because that will be the start of negative online News for the PS4 whatever MS show :-/