SONY expects profit to slip after pandemic boom

Japan’s Sony Corp said that it is expecting its operating income to slip 4.3% this business year. This is a result of record profit from sales of music, games and other content to people. And these are all due to the pandemic situation significantly.

Previously Sony was well fledged only in consumer electronics. But this increased demand during the pandemic time has made it to expand into the fields such as entertainment content and digital subscription services and game downloads. But as this situation is not a standard one, this gain would wane easily as per the expert analysis.

In an online news conference Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said that they expect software sales in quarter ending to be below the same period of last fiscal year. He also added that unlike last year, they don’t see any significant increase in subscribers for network services. Because the stay at home demand has been decreasing.

Sony forecast profit to fall to 930 billion yen ($8.53 billion), missing the 976.4-billion-yen average of 19 analyst estimates for this business year. Its new PlayStation 5 (PS5) has given a good demand for Sony in last business year. Sony was benefitted well as it was launched in core markets in November and quickly sold out. They use this success to encourage online game downloads and attract subscribers.

Sony was aiming to ship more than 14.8 million PS5s this year, said Totoki. This is double the number that have been sold since its launch. And then, there is a drastic global shortage of semiconductors meant that this couldn’t drastically boost output. Sony is pursuing acquisitions and distribution deals to boost up its entertainment content. As an example, for this AT&T Inc animation business Crunchyroll, has been planned to buy by Sony in last December. This will give 3 million new subscribers across 200 countries.

A deal with Walt Disney Co has been made by Sony to offer “Spider-Man” movies and other films on Disney’s streaming service after they are shown on Netflix Inc’s service. A profit of 66.5 billion yen – almost double the same period a year earlier has been shown by Sony.