Japanese giant Sony on Friday cut its profit forecast for the 2022/23 financial year, which began in early April, expecting worse-than-expected results at its video games division, particularly due to the cost of recent acquisitions. As part of its strategy to fight its rival in the field of games, the American Microsoft, this year Sony offered itself to the American game publisher Bungie (franchise creator “Hello!“and”destiny“) with the amount of 3.7 billion dollars.
This acquisition was completed this month, earlier than the group had expected in its previous forecast, thus further weighing on its earnings. Sony now expects a full-year net profit of 800 billion yen (€5.9 billion), down from 830 billion yen in May last year, down 9 percent year-on-year.
The group also revised its operating profit forecast to 1,110 billion yen (8.1 billion euros) from 1,160 billion yen previously. This would represent a 7.7% drop in 2021/22. compared to On the other hand, it raised its annual sales forecast very slightly to 11,500 billion yen (84.4 billion euros, +16% year-on-year), expecting a benefit for its music, film and consumer electronics divisions. the weakness of the yen, which artificially increases its income abroad.
Declining video game sales
In its first quarter of 2022/23, Sony saw its results in video games fall, citing the impact of lower sales and increased development costs in its statement. However, it fared better than a year ago in its film division, thanks to strong performance from TV broadcast rights and cartoon streaming and revenue from its music business.
In the April-June period, Sony thus delivered a net profit of ¥218.2 billion (€1.6 billion), up 3 percent year-on-year. Its operating profit rose 10% to ¥307bn (€2.2bn) and sales rose 2% to ¥2,311.5bn (€17bn).
As Sony still struggles to meet global demand for its PlayStation 5 console, due for release in late 2020, with production weighed down by component shortages and disrupted supply chains, the group wanted to take it easy on Friday. “Conditions are improving,” assured Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki, promising that the volume of available PS5s would “significantly increase” in the second half of 2022/23.
Sony, however, has not raised its target of selling 18 million PS5 units by the end of its current financial year, the end of next March, after 11.5 million sold in 2021/22. According to him, the 26% year-on-year decline in game sales for PlayStation, which was observed between April and June, is explained by the less at-home lifestyle of gamers compared to the first stage of the Covid-19 epidemic, but the curve may be flattening. as the PS5 becomes more available.
Source: Le Figaro
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