Sony Posts 37b Yen Q1 Loss News

The continued downturn of the global market and the appreciation of the Yen led to Sony posting a decrease in sales, leading to an operating and net loss for the first quarter ended June 30th 2009.

Sales for Sony Corp during the period fell by 19.2% to 1.60 trillion yen from 1.98 trillion yen in the previous year.  As a result Sony Corp recorded an operating loss for the period of 25.7 billion yen compared to an operating income of 73.4 billion yen for the same period in the prior year.  A net loss of 37.1 billion yen was recorded compared to a net income of 35 billion yen.

Sony Corp's full year forecast remains unchanged, with sales expected to top 7.3 trillion yen, compared with 7.73 trillion yen for fiscal 08.  An operating loss for the full year of 110 billion yen is expected, leading to a net loss for FY09 of 120 billion yen.

Looking at the Games business realigned under the Networked Products & Services division reveals that sales dropped by 37.4% year-on-year to 246.8 billion yen compared with 394.4 billion yen.  Sony attributes this to lower game and sales of VAIO PCs. 

Sales in the games business decreased year-on-year as a result of a decrease in unit sales of PSP and PlayStation3 hardware and an overall decrease in software sales.  During the quarter ended June 30th 2009, Sony sold 1.1 million PlayStation3 units and 1.3 million PSP units, compared to 1.6 million PS3 units and 3.7 million PSP units in the same period last year.

The decline in sales for the division led to an operating loss of 39.7 billion yen compared to an operating income of 4.6 billion yen for the same period in the prior year.  An operating loss of 414 billion yen is forecast for the division for the full fiscal 2009 year ended March 31st 2010.