Beyonce, PlayStation games help Sony post a 10% jump in profits

Sony on Wednesday reported a 10% jump in operating profit in the fiscal first quarter, beating analyst expectations after seeing strong growth in its gaming, music and imaging chip businesses.

The Japanese technology giant’s music division, in particular, got a boost during the quarter as the release of R&B star Beyonce’s new “Cowboy Carter” album boosted its performance.

Here’s how Sony did in the June quarter, versus LSEG consensus estimates:

• Revenue: 3.01 trillion Japanese yen ($20.5 billion), versus 2.8 trillion yen expected. That marked a 2% rise from the same period a year ago.
• Operating profit: 279.11 billion yen ($1.9 billion), versus 275.35 billion yen expected. That was up 10% year-over-year.

In an earnings release Wednesday, Sony said that its first-quarter sales benefited from “significant increases” in game and network services, music, and imaging and sensing solutions.

Gaming, for which Sony is well-known thanks to its popular PlayStation consoles, banked revenues of 864.9 billion yen in the quarter, up 12% from 771.9 billion yen a year ago.

Meanwhile, Sony’s music and imaging sensor divisions saw revenue jumps of 23% and 21%, respectively.

For full-year 2024, Sony revised its forecast upward saying it now expects to hit 12.6 billion yen of sales. That’s up 2% from what the company was previously guiding.

Sony also upped its operating profit forecast by 3%, noting it expects to reach 1.3 trillion yen in consolidated operating profit for the full year.

Within the music division, Sony got a boost from newly released recorded music during the June quarter — including from U.S. singer Beyonce.

Sony name-dropped Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter,” Future & Metro Boomin’s “We Don’t Trust You,” and SZA’s “SOS” as its top 10 best-selling recorded music projects for Sony Music Entertainment in the first quarter.

“Cowboy Carter,” released in March, pays homage to Beyonce’s home town, Houston, Texas. It is one of the biggest releases of 2024 so far, alongside Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department.”

In May, the Japanese consumer electronics power house reported a disappointing full-year 2023, narrowly missing its target for annual PlayStation 5 sales. The firm at the time reported total unit sales of 20.8 million in the fiscal year 2023, lower than the 21 million units Sony said it was expecting.

On Wednesday, Sony said it sold 2.4 million PlayStation 5 units in the June quarter. That was down from the 3.3 million PlayStation 5 units Sony sold in the same period a year ago.

However, the company got a boost from software sales even as hardware revenue lagged. Sony said it saw an increase in sales of first-party game software titles and in sales from network services — primarily its PlayStation Plus subscription service.

PlayStation Plus is a membership program that gives players access to online multiplayer and provides access to a number of free titles each month.

The numbers show a longer-term shift for the console industry, which has seen a trend of gamers increasingly turning to digital downloads and subscription services.

This includes offerings that enable streaming games via the cloud, a technology that forgoes the need for expensive hardware.

Shares of Sony closed flat in Tokyo Wednesday. Japanese shares have had a turbulent few days this week, with the blue-chip Nikkei on Monday logging its worst day since the 1987 Black Monday market crash.