Japanese entertainment giant Sony said on Friday it expected annual profit to rise as revenue from some business areas in the fourth quarter helped weather the memory price crisis.
Here are Sony’s fourth-quarter results compared to LSEG estimates:
- Revenue: 3.036 trillion JPY ($19.4 billion) compared to analyst estimates of 2.896 trillion yen.
- Operating profit: 164 billion yen, compared with analyst estimates of 278 billion yen.
While hardware sales fell to 110 billion yen in the fourth quarter, compared with 183 billion yen in the same period last year, revenue was boosted by strong performance in Sony’s image sensor and music businesses.
Total PlayStation 5 sales fell to 1.5 million units in the fourth quarter, from 2.8 million a year earlier.
Sony forecast that net profit for its upcoming fiscal year ending March 2027 would rise 13% to 1.16 trillion yen, compared with a profit of 1.03 trillion yen this year.
The company also said it would buy back up to 500 billion yen of shares next year.
The company’s shares remained flat, with the stock down 0.5% by market close on May 8.
memory value increase
In March, Sony said it would raise the prices of its flagship PlayStation 5 console for the second time in less than a year due to “pressures in the global economic landscape”.
The company said Friday it expects the impact of the memory price increase on its 2026 forecast to be limited to about 30 billion yen. It also expects hardware profitability in its upcoming financial year to be similar to the last 12 months.
“In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the impact of memory market conditions gradually became more pronounced in the smartphone market, especially in the low-end market, but our mobile sensor sales exceeded our forecast, primarily due to strong shipments to our key customers,” Sony said in its earnings presentation.
It added that PS5 sales depend on the ability to secure reasonable prices for memory for the console.
After an annual increase of more than 20% in each of the last three years, Sony’s stock has fallen about 23% since the beginning of 2026.
Operating profit in the fourth quarter fell well below expectations as the company suffered losses from its canceled EV joint venture with Honda and the resulting loss from its purchase of game developer Bungie in 2022.
Sony has forecast a slight decline in revenue for the upcoming fiscal year and estimates the company will have revenue of 12.3 trillion yen this year, compared to 12.5 trillion yen last year.
