Today Sony announced its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2019, which relates to the period between April 1 and June 30, 2019.
As usual, we get an update of the PS4 units shipped during the quarter. 3.2 million were purchased by retailers worldwide, which means that the grand total as of June 30 is at 100 million units.
You can check out a summary of the performance of the Game & Network Services business (which includes PlayStation and PlayStation Network) below.
Sales have decreased by 3% due to lower sales of games (both first-party and third/second-party), partly offset by an increase in PS4 hardware sales and network sales including PlayStation Plus. The results for operating income show a similar trend.
The forecast for the full fiscal year is interesting. Sony revised it downwards to 15 million units shipped between April 2019 and March 2020 (compared to 16 million units in the previous forecast), meaning that if they achieve this new goal, the number of shipments will reach 111.8 million units by March 31, 2020.
“Sales are expected to be lower than the April forecast primarily due to lower-than-expected PlayStation4 (“PS4”) software sales mainly from non-first-party titles, as well as lower-than-expected PS4 hardware unit sales.
Operating income is expected to remain unchanged from the April forecast primarily due to the impact of cost reductions and an increase in network services revenue including sales for PlayStation Plus, substantially offset by the impact of the above-mentioned expected decrease in sales of software and hardware”
We also get a further breakdown of the gaming business’ performance showing that the PlayStation Plus subscriber total is now at 36.2 million.
As for Sony as a whole, the presentation materials showcase that all profitability figures are firmly in the black, even if we see a decrease in sales and net income year-on-year.
If you’d like to compare, you can read our dedicated article about the previous financial results announced in April.
