Consumer demand helps Sony find profit

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 29 Jul 2010 at 16:03

Sony returned to profitability in the first quarter on booming demand for its Bravia flat TVs and PlayStation 3 game consoles.

Sony reported April-June operating profit of 67 billion yen (£491 million) versus the consensus for a 13 billion yen loss in a poll of four analysts and a loss of 25.7 billion yen a year ago.

The real driver of our growth should be the products, services and contents that we offer to customers

As well as improving demand for Bravia LCD TVs and Vaio PCs, sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles, which can now be used to play several 3D games on Sony's 3D TVs, more than doubled to 2.4 million units.

After Sony scraped into profit for the year to March 2010 largely on the back of income from its financial services division, chief financial officer Masaru Kato lauded the latest results as a return to the company's roots.

"The real driver of our growth should be the products, services and contents that we offer to customers," he told a news conference, singling out new hit products such as a lightweight camera with interchangeable lenses launched last month.

Some analysts said the NEX cameras, which combine light weight and compact size with some of the features of professional digital cameras, such as interchangeable lenses, could help Sony to take a big bite out of both compact and single-lens reflex markets, potentially pushing Canon off the top spot.

"It (Sony) did well in the April quarter with aggressive marketing, especially in its TV business, but its growth rate will slow down in the current quarter because overall TV sales are weakening in line with a softening global economy," said Park Young-Joo, an analyst at Woori Investment and Securities in Seoul.

Sony has also benefited from the aggressive cost-cutting implemented in the last financial year by its Welsh-American chief executive, Howard Stringer, a former TV newsman and one of the few foreigners to head a major Japanese company.