Sony Raises 2024 Outlook on Gaming, Music Growth

Big news for Sony! Their stock prices went up over 8% on Thursday. This great jump happened because Sony shared some exciting updates. They now expect to make even more money this year than they thought before. This good news comes after strong sales in their video game and music businesses. However, their movie section didn’t do quite as well.

Even Better Year Ahead for Sony

Sony now believes they’ll sell a lot more this year. They’ve increased their sales prediction to 13.2 trillion yen, which is a massive $86 billion! Also, they raised their operating profit forecast to 1.34 billion yen ($8.7 million). Lastly, they boosted their net income expectation to 1.8 trillion yen ($12 billion). These new forecasts are up from their earlier predictions. That’s a jump of 4% for sales, 2% for profit, and a big 10% for income!

Quick Look at the Numbers

Let’s dive into the key numbers. Sony brought in 4.41 trillion yen ($29 billion) in revenue. This is a fantastic 18% increase compared to last year! Experts thought they’d make around $24.32 billion, so they beat expectations. Their net income reached 373.7 billion yen ($2.44 billion), a 3% rise. Finally, operating income totaled 469.3 billion yen ($3.06 billion), slightly up by 1%.

Gaming and Music are Big Winners for Sony

Sony’s Playstation division is booming! Video game sales grew by a solid 16%, reaching 1.68 trillion yen ($11 billion). This boost comes from more people buying PlayStations and games. Loads of gamers are active on Playstation. A record 129 million accounts are active every month! Gamers spent 2% more time playing too. Interestingly, many new PS5 owners are completely new to the PlayStation world!

Furthermore, profits in the gaming section jumped by a huge 37%. This was driven by online services and game sales. Though, making the consoles themselves and some game sales held profits back a bit. Also doing incredibly well is Sony’s music business. Music sales increased 14% to 481.7 billion yen ($3.14 billion). Streaming music and their ticketing platform are the reasons behind this growth. Music profits also soared by 28%!

Looking forward, Sony expects both gaming and music to keep growing. Gaming sales are predicted to increase a bit more. Music should also see continued sales and profit growth.

Movies Face Headwinds for Sony

However, not all news is great. Sony Pictures, their movie business, saw profits fall by 18%. This dip is mainly because of higher costs to market movies and less money from older TV shows.

Despite lower profits, movie revenue actually grew 9%. This happened because of the “Venom” movie doing well and more subscribers to Crunchyroll. Plus, their Alamo Drafthouse acquisition helped. But, fewer new TV shows being delivered balanced out this growth.

Sony mentioned wildfires in Los Angeles should not cause big problems. Also, TV show making is getting back on track after last year’s Hollywood strikes. Movie release dates for the new “Spider-Man” and “Jumanji” have been pushed back a bit due to the strike’s after-effects. The outlook for Sony Pictures for the rest of the year remains the same as previously expected.