[hey69]

Sony Logs Decreased Sales and Income in Electronics, but Aided by Favorable Picture Business
Apr 28, 2005 15:47





Sony Corp. has released its FY2004 (April 2004-March 2005) consolidated financial results. The results largely met forecasts that were revised downwards in January 2005, with sales declining 4.5% year-on-year (YoY) to ¥7.1596 trillion but with operating income growing 15.2% YoY to ¥113.9 billion. Impacted by decreased sales of CRT TVs and portable audio players, sales of electronics products dropped 0.4% YoY to ¥5.0216 trillion. Operating loss for this segment expanded to ¥34.3 billion, compared to ¥6.8 billion posted for FY2003, reflecting lower pricing for products such as DVD recorders and video cameras.

Game related sales declined 6.5% YoY to ¥729.8 billion, and operating income for this area also decreased 36.1% YoY to ¥43.2 billion. Key factors behind these drops in both sales and operating income include decreased unit sales of the PlayStation2 home game console, as well as price reductions. The market release of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) in December 2004 had little impact on FY2004 results. Sony revealed that PSP shipments were 2.97 million units as of the end of March 2005. Of the 2.97 million units, the Japanese market accounted for 1.44 million units and the US market constituted 1.53 million units.
Both the music and picture segments performed favorably. The music segment saw sales drop 43.4% YoY to ¥249.1 billion, but posted an operating income of ¥8.8 billion, returning to profitability from an operating loss of ¥6.0 billion for the previous year. On the other hand, the picture segment logged a large operating income of ¥63.9 billion, supported by the major hit "Spider-Man 2" and solid sales of DVD/VHS software


http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english...49/?ST=english

[PC-Engine]

Those are shipped numbers not sold numbers.

[hey69]

it's sold for sony, that's what counts for them

anyway, i'm wondering how the psp will sell in EU.

ah wasn't the psp launched in Korea last weekend?

[PC-Engine]

Originally Posted by hey69

it's sold for sony, that's what counts for them

and they have a long way to go just to catch up to DS.

[mech]

Ahhhhh PC-Engine, so anti Sony.

PSP is doing pretty well against DS, especially given it's only available, where, only Korea, Japan and the US? For quite a price premium over the DS?

Sony sold more than 600,000 PSPs in the first week of its US launch, while the DS sold 500,000 units in its first two weeks in the US.

And DS just topped 5 million units, compared to PSP's 3 million? Given its availability in other markets, and these other markets contributing to the bottom line substantially, I'd say PSP is doing quite alright for itself so far. It's a marathon, not a sprint, I'll be very interested to see sales figures in a year Sony's aiming for 15 million sold by then.

Saying PSP has got a long way to go to catching up to the DS is sheer fanboyism IMO.

[PC-Engine]

Sony sold more than 600,000 PSPs in the first week of its US launch, while the DS sold 500,000 units in its first two weeks in the US.

Sure but it went downhill pretty quickly after that, just look at the weekly sales.

[london-boy]

They need some big games if they wish to keep up with DS and Nintendo's big sellers. Nintedogs is pushing a lot of units all by itself, for reasons that are completely oblivious to me.

[rabidrabbit]

But it has!
It has to go from Japan to Europe, and that's a long long way to go
It's already taken almost half a year to reach here, and it'll still take further four months until it has finally arrived.

[london-boy]

Originally Posted by rabidrabbit

But it has!
It has to go from Japan to Europe, and that's a long long way to go
It's already taken almost half a year to reach here, and it'll still take further four months until it has finally arrived.

I think they're making hundreds of poor little Sony's employees swim all the way up here, with backpacks full of PSPs. Explains the delay, considering we're getting the same boxes, more or less.

[rendezvous]

Originally Posted by hey69

anyway, i'm wondering how the psp will sell in EU.

From what i've seen it's allready doing pretty well. I've seen 3 PSPs now but i have yet to see a DS.

[PC-Engine]

Originally Posted by rendezvous

From what i've seen it's allready doing pretty well. I've seen 3 PSPs now but i have yet to see a DS.

Yes we all know personal experience has great significance. Same old "in my area it's all sold out" routine.

[london-boy]

Originally Posted by rendezvous

From what i've seen it's allready doing pretty well. I've seen 3 PSPs now but i have yet to see a DS.

Guess they're imported... And i guess whoever had them made a lot of effort to show them off, since PSP still hasn't been released here.

I have not seen any PSPs or DS on people, though i have seen a lot of Ngage's. Must mean Ngage is da king.

[rabidrabbit]

Haven't seen any PSP's here either, I must be the only one owning a PSP inside 10 km radius.
It could be those who have one are afraid to show it in public, I'm afraid I'll get mugged or gangriped if people see me with my sexy shiny black PSP

[Johnny_Physics]

Originally Posted by london-boy

Guess they're imported... And i guess whoever had them made a lot of effort to show them off, since PSP still hasn't been released here.

The PSP is doing a great job exposing itself without any user intervention. My personal experience here in Euro land, even before the European launch of the DS, is that the PSP gets quite a lot of attention from people not interested in gaming.

If you're holding a DS most people just see it as "one of those gameboys" but if you're holding a PSP people will stare at it, comment on it, asking if they can touch it, caress it, spoon it in bed... They don't care about its ability to play games or video/audio, they don't even want to play Lumines or Ridge Racer, all they care about is how shiny and sleek it looks. So in my experience it certainly grabs the attention of others, even strangers.
I don't know how I feel about that, actually.

[PC-Engine]

The pertinent question is do they want to spend a good chunk of money just to touch its shiny shine.

[rabidrabbit]

As if you couldn't do anything else with it but touch
Non gaming people might find it harder to justify it just for music and videos, but if you are a gamer there's little to put one off buying one.

I've found the video viewing on PSP to be much better than what I first thought. The screen really does make a difference, it does not restrict the experience as much as I thought prior experiencing first hand.
So even casual gamers might find the PSP has much to offer.

[Johnny_Physics]

Originally Posted by PC-Engine

The pertinent question is do they want to spend a good chunk of money just to touch its shiny shine.

I don't know, people seem to be limited to communicating only with exclamation points when they're around a PSP so I haven't been able to extract that kind of information from anyone.

[PC-Engine]

Originally Posted by Johnny_Physics

I don't know, people seem to be limited to communicating only with exclamation points when they're around a PSP so I haven't been able to extract that kind of information from anyone.

Exactly my point which rabbidrabbit apparently missed.

[Johnny_Physics]

Originally Posted by PC-Engine

Exactly my point which rabbidrabbit apparently missed.

The shine is great for luring them in, when they start to find out what the device can do they will surely get even more impressed.
I mean, I don't think they'll be disappointed when they find out that their favorite shiny slice of heaven can play video, audio and PS2-like games.

[Ali-G]

hey69, you don't think you should actually use the right wording so people don't get confused here? Its shipped not sold (even Sony says shipped).

Sony sold more than 600,000 PSPs in the first week of its US launch, while the DS sold 500,000 units in its first two weeks in the US.

Sony released 1 million PSP's for launch in the US. Nintendo only had 600,000 DS's in the US on launch.

And DS just topped 5 million units, compared to PSP's 3 million?

No, if you kept up with DS related stuff you'd know that Nintendo shipped just over 6 million DS's back in March.

Saying PSP has got a long way to go to catching up to the DS is sheer fanboyism IMO.

It has got quite a long way, especially considering DS's lead is only getting bigger in Japan and Europe.

[hey69]

i don't think there will be a million pieces of difference between shipped and sold.

what i understand is sony can only ship to sellers and get paid by them.
it's the sellers problem to SELL them to clients like you and me

so i presume ... that what only counts is shipped to sell by sony

[Ali-G]

There is a significant difference between shipped and sold if you look at sales tracking data. The report says that 1.44 million were shipped by the end of March in Japan. But Japanese sales of PSP were at 1.1 million at that time. 1.53 million were shipped to the US by the end of March while 700,000 where actually sold by that time. So that's a difference of more then 1.1 million between shipped and sold. Its similar for DS as well, 6 million shipped just under 5 million sold.

I don't really want to argue about the importance of shipped and sold to Sony. Although I would say that if shops can't sell a Sony product then it will be Sony's problem to get them to buy more stock. Anyway I'm only talking about using the correct wording to avoid future confusion. In the end even Sony report it as shipped so it should be reported here as shipped, its just the correct term that's all.

[see colon]

if sony "sold" units to resellers, when hardware prices dropped no retailers would drop the price until all of the units they purchased at the higher prices were sold to customers. i think it's more of a consignment agreement.

Originally Posted by mech

Ahhhhh PC-Engine, so anti Sony.
...
And DS just topped 5 million units, compared to PSP's 3 million? Given its availability in other markets, and these other markets contributing to the bottom line substantially, I'd say PSP is doing quite alright for itself so far. It's a marathon, not a sprint, I'll be very interested to see sales figures in a year Sony's aiming for 15 million sold by then.

this is awsome. you basicly accuse PC-Engine of being a fanboy then use sony's "shipped" numbers against nintendo's sold numbers. the DS has sold more units in each of the territories they are both available in. even in japan, where the launches of both systems was about 2 weeks apart the DS has outsold the PSP nearly 2:1.

that's not to say the PSP is selling poorly, and i'm certainly not calling it a failure. i'm sure it'll do fine in the long run, but currently it's not exactly doing steller when you compare the numbers to the DS.

[Ty]

Why was the DS even brought up in this topic in the first place? To start another flame fest? Both handhelds are going to do fine, we can all relax.

[mech]

Originally Posted by rabidrabbit

Haven't seen any PSP's here either, I must be the only one owning a PSP inside 10 km radius.
It could be those who have one are afraid to show it in public, I'm afraid I'll get mugged or gangriped if people see me with my sexy shiny black PSP

Hahaha me too, I'm afraid to use mine on the train or whatever, I get quite a few looks...

No, if you kept up with DS related stuff you'd know that Nintendo shipped just over 6 million DS's back in March.

I looked up the latest DS news before I wrote my post and every site said they'd sold 5 million worldwide. So a thousand pardons, just going on what the newsites were telling me.

It has got quite a long way, especially considering DS's lead is only getting bigger in Japan and Europe.

The sales figures in Japan show that PSP is outselling DS week to week - and of course its lead is getting bigger in Europe, you nonce!

this is awsome. you basicly accuse PC-Engine of being a then use sony's "shipped" numbers against nintendo's sold numbers.

I'm assuming you meant to use the word f@nboy there, but anyway, he is - whenever he can get the boot in, he does, and he refuses to see the good side of the PSP.

I guess you could say that about me and the DS, but I'm just sick of getting screwed over by Nintendo really

And as for having a go at me about comparing shipped and sold numbers - I looked up Google news to get my info, and those numbers come direct from there. So if you want to cry foul about those numbers, go have a cry to all the news sites reporting them.

even in japan, where the launches of both systems was about 2 weeks apart the DS has outsold the PSP nearly 2:1.

IIRC DS sold better at launch (partly because they had higher numbers to sell), giving it a head start, but since then PSP has been outselling DS (almost?) every week.

Why was the DS even brought up in this topic in the first place? To start another flame fest? Both handhelds are going to do fine, we can all relax.

Exactly. Good post.