Sony FY15 Q1 [calendar Q2] results are
released.
PS4+PS3 3.5M
Vita+VitaTV 0.7M
Software 85M
Sony as a whole is in much better shape, gaming division is in black, they are getting proffits almost everywhere [overall $260M net profits].
Lots of interesting things there.
A sizeable chunk of the increased revenue and thus profits comes to a change in exchange rates.
Sales were 1,809.9 billion yen (17,920 million U.S. dollars), an increase of 5.8% compared to the same quarter of the previous fiscal year (“year-on-year”).
<snip>
On a constant currency basis, sales increased 3% year-on-year. For further details about sales on a constant currency basis, see Note on page 9.
They are definitely trending in the correct direction at least. And it's notable that they still would have done well even without exchange rates boosting their income YoY.
PS4 continues to turn around their game division. Taking it from a loss of 162 million USD a year ago to a profit of 43 million USD for the quarter this year.
Most divisions showed positive performance compared to a year ago with the exception of Mobile Communications where they went from a profit of 124 million US to a loss of 27 million USD despite sales income increasing from 2.8 billion USD to 3.1 billion USD. Likely due to the erosion of margins as smartphone sales increasingly move from high end devices to budget oriented devices. As well Fianancial services declined YoY but still provided the largest operating income YoY.
Slightly worrying is that they continue to burn through cash. Minus 3.55 billion (34.3%) compared to a year ago but total assets only dropped by 2.28 billion (5.5%). Some, but not all of it went towards the repayment of debts which is a good thing.
Page 33 has an interesting regional breakdown of sales and revenue by region.
Japan's contribution shrunk by 3.8% to 5.063 billion USD
US' contribution grew by 20.9% to 3.023 billion USD
Europe's contribution grew by 19.5% to 3.883 billion USD
China's contribution grew by 8.0% to 1.317 billion USD
Asia-Pacific shrunk by 4.9% to 2.424 billion USD
Other Areas grew by 2.2% to 2.210 billion USD
Some things to note. For Sony, Japan is still really important. But its importance is in decline, due in part to lackluster performance of their console division.
China's growth is still vastly eclipsed by NA and Europe. Showing how difficult it is to tap into that region despite it being a larger market than NA or EU and possibly both combined.
Asia-Pacific may be seeing decline due to Sony pulling out of the PC business. Korea, arguably the largest Asia-Pacific market is heavily invested in PCs.
The problem is there's nothing that suggests the EU as a whole is a larger console market than the USA, let alone 2-3X USA. All last gen it was about the same size as the USA (or North America). And that's an easy way to think about it. North America ~ EU
When companies bother to break out NA, EU, and rest of world. EU tends to be a smaller market than NA for many companies when it comes to electronics and gaming. The reasons tend to deal with things that can rapidly devolve into discussions that belong in the no-no hidden forum areas.
When you factor in all of Europe, however, it tends to be similar (sometimes higher, sometimes lower depending on company and product). This despite Europe having a larger population than NA.
Sony tends to be an exception here as they tend to perform stronger in Europe than they do in the US as the above bit shows. Although keep in mine that includes far more than electronics and games. Financial services, music, motion pictures, etc. are also included in that. Also keep in mind that some countries (like Russia) that are included in their European region aren't in the EU. So, even for Sony, the EU may be a smaller market than NA.
Regards,
SB