Sony Group Corp (6758.T) said Friday that PlayStation 5 sales would rise by six million units this business year. Still, its earnings will fall from a record high as lower financial services sales offset gains from gaming, music, and movies.
According to Refinitiv data, the Japanese corporation anticipates operating profit in the year to March 31 to dip 3.2% to 1.17 trillion yen ($8.65 billion), below analysts’ average forecast of 1.275 trillion.
After struggling to build enough PlayStation 5 game consoles during the COVID-19 pandemic due to semiconductor supply chain interruptions, the entertainment and electronics giant will be relieved by its gaming unit’s improved performance.
“We can now deliver PlayStation 5 to almost anywhere in the world without keeping our customers waiting,” Sony Group President Hiroki Totoki said at a press event after the firm revealed its results.
Sony, which competes with Xbox maker Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Switch provider Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.T), expects to sell a record 25 million PlayStation 5 (PS5) consoles this business year, up from 19.1 million last year and more than double the year before that.
The firm expected gaming and network earnings to climb 8% to 270 billion yen this year.
Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda said slow videogame software sales, which are more profitable than console sales, hampered the gaming unit. However, However, PlayStation 5 sales tripled to 6.3 million copies in the March quarter.
Software revenues declined by 3.5%. This is because new hardware requires new software. “Software sales should have grown with hardware,” Yasuda remarked.
Sony predicts its music and film sectors to earn somewhat more this year, but financial services will lose a fifth. Sony expects image sensor operating profit to drop 5.8% to 200 billion yen.
Operating profit for the three months ending March 31 dipped 7.3% to 128.5 billion yen, while full-year profit rose to 1.21 trillion yen.