The Japanese Sony Corp. increased its net profit in the 1st fiscal quarter more than tripled, in particular, thanks to strong sales of video games, as well as digital image sensors for smartphones.
Net profit in April-June rose to 82.44 billion yen ($ 665 million), compared with 26.8 billion yen in the same period a year earlier, is said in the Sony report.
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, on average, had forecasted the figure at 40.3 billion yen.
The restructuring, carried out in the company in recent years, has reduced the dependence of Sony on the operations for the production of consumer electronics, including TVs and smartphones.
Sony is actively developing a division for the production of image sensors used in digital cameras and mobile devices. Clients of this division are, in particular, Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Samsung Electronics Co. and Xiaomi Inc.
Sony has already invested about 210 billion yen in expanding capacity for the production of digital image sensors, and experts believe that the company will increase investments in this segment to meet the growing demand, writes The Wall Street Journal.
Revenue of the division on devices production, including the operations for production of digital image sensors, in the last quarter jumped 35%, to 237.9 billion yen; profit doubled to 30.3 billion yen.
The revenue of division which produces game consoles rose in April-June by 12%, to 288.6 billion yen, operating profit jumped more than 4 times, to 19.5 billion yen. Sales of PlayStation 4, produced by Sony, are significantly higher than the demand for Xbox One from Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Wii U by Nintendo Co.
The company raised its sales forecast for the PlayStation 4 for the current fiscal year to 16.5 million units from 16 million previously expected.
At the same time, the division of Sony, which produces mobile phones, recorded in the last quarter operating loss of 22.9 billion yen. Head of the unit, Hiroki Totok, said that business is likely to continue to incur losses this year. Totoki plans to return this business to a profitable level in the next fiscal year, starting in April 2016.
Revenue from sales of smartphones fell 16%, to 280.5 billion yen.
Sony has kept the target net profit for the current fiscal year at 140 billion yen, being the highest level since 2008. In addition, the company expects revenue to decline this year by 3.8%, to 7.9 trillion yen.