Sony's new CEO Kenichiro Yoshida has been at the company's captain for simply a few short months now, simply fortunately, former chief Kaz Hirai left him an already successful visitor to run. Yoshida has his own designs for Sony, with a three-year plan to focus primarily on the entertainment and imaging businesses. It's important non to have the favorable position the company is in for granted, though, so we imagine Yoshida is pleased with Sony'southward latest financial results released today. There's nothing besides boggling most the numbers, merely Sony did record $17.9 billion in revenue for the three months ending in June, from which information technology extracted about $one.8 billion in profit. And yes, no points for guessing PlayStation is responsible for the majority of that.

PlayStation head John Kodera said a few months ago that he suspects Sony is getting close to selling every bit many PS4 consoles as it's ever likely to. Declining hardware sales is part of the natural lifecycle of consoles, of course, but that doesn't seem to be having any effect just yet. From April to June, Sony shifted 3.2 million PS4s -- only 100,000 less than were sold during the aforementioned period last yr. Just over 40 meg games were purchased, and the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers is holding relatively steady at 33.nine 1000000 (downward from 34.2 1000000 at the end of March). In full, Sony'southward PlayStation arm brought in nearly $750 million in profit (JP¥83.5 billion), which is more than twice as much coin as any other department.

Even if panel sales exercise begin to dwindle, there are plenty of highly anticipated games coming out that'll proceed money flowing in the right direction. Sony'due south Spider-Man game arrives in a little over a calendar month, and and so there's Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Battlefield V and Red Expressionless Redemption two all dropping in October. In the longer-term, gamers also have Ghost of Tsushima and Hideo Kojima'south eery Expiry Stranding to look forward to.

Kojima Studios

If PlayStation is Sony'southward golden goose, then the smartphone partition is the thorn in its side. A few quarters ago, mobile did really make Sony some money, simply that seems to have been a momentary divergence from the norm. Smartphones lost the company around $247 million (JP¥27.6 billion) in the previous fiscal yr, and the first three months of the new fiscal calendar aren't yielding better news. Another loss of nearly $97 one thousand thousand (JP¥10.8 billion) is the wart on today's books, and Sony doesn't expect it to go any better. In its predictions for the residual of the year, the company expects sales to subtract further, mainly in Europe, and the already "astringent competition" it's facing to get even tougher. The Xperia XZ2 family hasn't blown anyone away, it seems, and the new mid-rangers and XZ2 Premium are unlikely to opposite the division'due south fortunes.

Sony Pictures also lost the company some money this quarter, but that'due south kinda par for the form. The movie biz was roughly $68 million (JP¥vii.six billion) in the cherry, but that's less than the company lost during the aforementioned period concluding twelvemonth. Merely two movies were released during the quarter, though, and Sicario: Day of the Soldado was just in cinemas for two days before the books were shut for another three months. At the terminate of the last financial twelvemonth, Sony Pictures recorded a turn a profit of virtually $370 million (JP¥41.one billion), so a sketchy first quarter shouldn't be any cause to worry -- the interns uploading full movies to YouTube instead of trailers might be, however.

Sony'due south other departments are ticking forth quite nicely. Its music sectionalisation brought in roughly $288 million in turn a profit (JP¥32.i billion) thanks to strong streaming revenues and the success of its mobile gratis-to-play game Fate/M Social club, which is lumped into the category. At the end of this financial year in March 2019, Sony's said it'll stop making physical PS Vita games. With Fate/Grand Gild doing well, mayhap the future of Sony's handheld gaming strategy will include more than mobile titles.

The home amusement and sound division made a healthy $156 million (JP¥17.four billion) in profit, mainly due to an increase in Television set and headphone sales. Sony's camera business had a potent quarter, also, making a turn a profit of around $234 million (JP¥26.1 billion). Sales of Sony products nether the semiconductor banner -- which includes photographic camera modules and smartphone prototype sensors -- held true. That department counted $261 million (JP¥29.1 billion) in profit, which is unsurprising given it's one of Sony'due south nearly stable businesses. Nearly big-name smartphones employ Sony sensors, and the new 48-megapixel number appear a calendar week agone will no incertitude find a abode in the side by side generation of flagships.

All told, it's a drama-free quarter for Sony. Playstation hardware, software and services continues to pull in the biggest numbers, and other departments are performing characteristically. The company is flush with cash from selling some of its Spotify shares after the streaming service went public earlier this twelvemonth, banking $768 million, or $501 million in pre-tax income later on expenses. Things are looking good enough that Sony hasn't inverse its profit forecast for the year, simply does warn that it'll have a hit when it completes the $2.3 billion purchase of a pregnant piece of EMI Music Publishing.

The elephant in the room is Sony's smartphone partitioning, simply then once more, that's been lurking for some time now. With every other role of the business due to make coin this year, how long is new CEO Yoshida going to proceed to backing a historically loss-making division that shows no signs of rebounding in the nearly future?