Sony books $870 million quarterly profit

SONY Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda
 (left) announces the company’s third-quarter
 financial results in Tokyo yesterday. — AFP

TOKYO — Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp yesterday announced a third-quarter net profit of $870 million, a result it said "significantly exceeded expectations". The maker of PlayStation game consoles, Bravia televisions and Cyber-shot cameras is still emerging from the global economic slump but narrowed its full-year loss forecast to 70 billion yen from 95 billion yen.

"We did well across the board during the year-end shopping season," said Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's Chief Financial Officer. "It significantly exceeded expectations. Cost cutting efforts bore fruits. Improvements were also seen in our financial businesses," he told a press conference.
For the October-December quarter, Sony reported a net profit of 79.2 billion yen ($870 million) against a 10.4-billion-yen profit in the same period a year earlier. In the July-September quarter, it lost 26.3 billion yen.

Sales of PlayStation 3 rose following a price cut and introduction of successful game titles, Oneda said. Liquid crystal display televisions in Asia — a key product group in an important market — also boosted the operating profit during the quarter although lowered prices reduced overall sales value, he said.

Sony also reported an operating profit of 146 billion yen during the three months — compared with an operating loss of 17.96 billion yen a year earlier — on revenue of 2.24 trillion yen in the three months to December. Sony continued to pursue aggressive cost-cutting measures, including shedding 20,000 jobs, Oneda said. — AFP