Sony has announced slight revenue gains and a 33.5 per cent profit jump for the quarter ending December 31st, 2015.
The PlayStation business continued to a source of growth for the company, with an increase in both sales and operating income. Revenues for the sector rose by 10.5 percent, in part thanks to PlayStation 4 console shipments of 8.4 million to retailers during the quarter and higher PS4 software sales. Earlier this month Sony confirmed that PS4 end consumer sales have reached 35.9 million to date.
Year-on-year gains were also recorded due to significant write-offs of PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV units in the third fiscal quarter of 2015 due to lower than expected sales of those systems.
Sony declined to reveal shipments of PlayStation 3 and Vita systems but noted that sales of previous generation consoles and software continue to fall.
This week saw the announcement of a major consolidation and relocation of Sony’s gaming and network businesses. Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment will merge to form Sony Interactive Entertainment on April 1st, the start date of the company’s next fiscal year. The new entity will be headquartered in California rather than Sony’s native Japan.
The company continues to dominate this console generation. We learned earlier this week that Microsoft has sold around 19 million Xbox One systems. While Redmond itself has declined to reveal console sales since it announced a shipment figure of 10 million in November 2014, EA announced that combined PS4 and Xbox One sales have reached 55 million. The figure represents a 50 percent increase compared to the previous generation.
