Aaron ThomasSony has released their financial results from the first quarter of the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2005. If you like numbers, please continue to read.
Sales and operating revenue in the three months ending June 30, 2004 totaled 1.60 trillion yen (approximately $14.4 billion U.S.), up half a percentage point from the same quarter one year earlier, when sales and operating revenue tallied 1.60 trillion yen (approximately $14.3 billion U.S.). Quarterly net income was 23.3 billion yen (approximately $208.3 million U.S.), well up from the 1.1 billion yen (approximately $9.8 million U.S.) one year earlier.
First quarter results in Sony’s Game division were off from one year ago, with sales and operating revenue tumbling almost 16.0 percent to 105.4 billion yen (approximately $942.4 million U.S.) from 125.2 billion yen (approximately $1.1 billion U.S.). An operating loss of 2.9 billion yen (approximately $25.9 million U.S.) was reported in the quarter, versus operating income in the Game segment one year earlier of 1.8 billion yen (approximately $16.1 million U.S.).
Sony pinned the loss on “a decrease in hardware sales, a decrease in sales of software published by SCE and the continuation of aggressive investment in research and development for future business.” Compared to the previous year’s quarter, PlayStation 2 hardware sales rose in Europe, but dropped in the U.S. and Japan, leading to an overall drop in unit sales year-over-year. PS2 software sales however were up overall from last year’s first quarter.
In the quarter, Sony shipped 0.71 million PS2 hardware units, a decrease of 1.94 million units from a year-ago. PS2 software shipments rose to 38.0 million units in the quarter, from 31.0 million previously. PSone hardware shipments totaled 0.57 million units in the three months, a drop of 0.26 million units, while PSone software shipments also slipped, to 3.0 million units from 8.0 million units in last year’s first quarter.