Sony has announced that sales of its flagship game console PlayStation 5 in fiscal 2023 will total 20.8 million units, slightly below the already revised downward target of 21 million units.
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Sony on Tuesday reported a 7% decline in annual profit for fiscal 2023, affected by a decline in its financial services division.
The company also narrowly missed its full-year sales forecast for its main game console, PlayStation 5.
Sony's March quarter earnings and LSEG consensus forecasts are as follows:
- Sales: 3.5 trillion yen ($22.4 billion) versus the expected 2.89 trillion yen. This represents a 14% year-on-year increase, but is Sony's first decline since the September 2020 quarter, according to LSEG data.
- Operating income: 229.4 billion yen compared to the forecast of 236.81 billion yen. This marks a 57% increase over the previous year.
The Japanese gaming giant reported revenue of 13 trillion in 2023, an increase of 19% year-on-year.
However, Sony's full-year operating profit was 1.2 trillion yen, down 7% from the same period last year.
Sony narrowly achieved its downwardly revised sales target for PlayStation 5. The company announced that sales of its flagship game consoles will total 20.8 million units in fiscal year 2023.
This is slightly lower than Sony's revised 21 million unit target that it presented to investors in February. Prior to that, the company expected annual sales of PS5 game consoles to reach 25 million units.
According to Reuters, Sony expects PS5 sales to fall further to 18 million units in the fiscal year ending March 2025, a company executive said.
This comes after Sony on Monday announced a management shake-up for its Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) games division, announcing that the division's interim CEO Hiroki Totoki will become chairman of the business. Thing.
Longtime Sony executives Hideaki Nishino and Harmen Hulst have been appointed CEOs of SIE's two newly created divisions, the Platform Business Group and Studio Business Group, respectively.
Sony said its financial services business was the main division pushing down profits.
The financial services sector's operating profit in 2023 was 173.6 billion yen, a 22.5% decrease from the previous year, although it increased steadily in 2022.
The company also suffered from a downturn in its Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS) business, which includes imaging chips.
Operating profit of Sony's I&SS business decreased by 9% from 2022 to 193.5 billion yen.
Sony said it expects group-wide sales to decline this financial year. Sales for the fiscal year ending March 2025 are expected to decline 5% to 12.3 trillion yen.
Sony announced in its consolidated financial results that operating income for fiscal 2024 is expected to increase by 5% to 1.28 trillion yen.
