As Ars Technica reports, Sony’s overall net profit for April to June significantly surpassed expectations to total ¥82.4 billion yen, around $664 million or £425 million. A major contributor to this was the PlayStation division which saw three million shipments across the three months.
The PlayStation 4 console has now sold a total of 25.3 million units worldwide. It continues to attract substantially more sales than Microsoft’s Xbox One or the Nintendo Wii U.
Sony’s devices division also performed well, seeing a 35.1 percent year-on-year increase in sales. The division manufactures components for other devices, including the camera sensors used in several high-end smartphones.
Elsewhere, the news remains as before. Sony Pictures took a $96 million loss while TV and home cinema sales fell 13.8 percent, apparently due to a lack of demand for mid-range LCD televisions.
The company’s own smartphone division has seen a 16.3 percent decrease in sales. This is likely to have been caused by a lack of consumer interest due to Sony’s failure to deliver any truly new and innovative devices for a couple of years, instead opting to offer minor refreshes of its “Xperia Z” Android range.
The Xperia Z5 is set to launch later this year and is tipped to finally bring in a new design and high-end specifications to allow Sony’s mobile division to pursue Apple and Samsung again. Today, the Sony Xperia Twitter account teased an August 3rd announcement that seems to involve smartphone photography, saying “a new way to capture split-second photos is coming.” It remains to be seen whether the company will manage to resurrect its falling smartphone business.
Although it is clear that Sony still has work to do in some areas, the company seems to be returning to profitability as it becomes clear that the PlayStation 4 is now the most successful current-generation games console on the market. Buoyed by strong PS4 and smartphone camera sensor sales, the company has successfully tripled its profit in the past three months.
