Tokyo — Sony reported a double-digit gain in overall sales and a profit for its second quarter ended September 30 driven by its electronics segment, but reported a wider loss for video games.
Sales were $18.1 billion, a gain of 12.3 percent in yen compared with the same quarter last year. ($1 equals 115 yen by Sony in its report.) Net income was $641 million for the quarter vs. a minimal net loss for last year’s quarter.
Sony pointed to a double-digit sales increase in its electronics segment, led by Bravia LCD TVs, Vaio PCs and Cyber-shot digital cameras, while its games segment also had a double-digit sales gain in the quarter. But in its games segment, its loss doubled to $841 million for the quarter vs. the same time last year.
In electronics, sales were $14.5 billion worldwide, a gain of 20.7 percent and operating income was up a whopping 1,231.6 percent, to $930 million, Sony reported.
In games, sales were $2.12 billion worldwide, a 42.9 percent increase vs. the same time last year. Sony blamed losses in its game segment on “strategic pricing of PS3 at points lower than its production cost and the increase of PS3-related inventory write downs recorded during the current quarter compared to the same quarter of the previous year.”
While unit sales of PS2 and PSP hardware and software were down during the quarter vs. the previous year, PS3 sales were 1.31 million units for hardware and 10.3 million units for software during the quarter.