Ekaterina Bespyatova

Sony Quarterly Report: Profit decline, PS Plus subscribers growth and console sales above cost

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Sony has prepared a report for the first fiscal quarter of 2021. In April-June, the company’s gaming direction earned over $5.5 billion. This was achieved largely thanks to the PlayStation 5 — the console stopped being sold at a loss.

Basic figures:

  • the revenue of the entire company in the first quarter was $20.7 billion, and the profit was $2.6 billion. They grew in annual terms by 15% and 26%, respectively;
  • Sony’s total gaming revenue reached $5.57 billion, which is 9.7% more than a year ago;
  • but the operating profit of the gaming direction decreased by 40.5% to $ 763 million. But it was still higher than that of any other Sony direction;
  • video games and add—ons to them brought the company $3.2 billion – 16% less compared to last year. Revenue from the sale of iron increased by 45.5% to $934.3 million.

Data on consoles and digital services:

  • During the quarter, the company sold 2.3 million copies of the PS5. As a result, the total shipments of the console reached 10.1 million by June 30. Sony announced a week ago that the console’s circulation had crossed the milestone of 10 million devices sold;
  • in a conversation with investors, Sony added that it no longer sells the basic PS5 in the negative. Its digital version is still sold below cost, but the company compensates for this with revenue from the peripherals and PS4;
  • PS4 sold 500 thousand units in the first quarter of 2021. In total, Sony has shipped 116.4 million copies of this console;
  • The number of games sold for PS4 and PS5 amounted to 63.6 million, of which 10.5 million were projects of internal studios. For comparison: in the first quarter of 2020, Sony sold 91.4 million games, of which 18.7 million were its own titles;
  • 71% of games sold are “digital”. In 2020, 74% of games were sold in this format;
  • the number of subscribers of the PlayStation Plus service amounted to 46.3 ml. More than a year ago, but less than in the previous quarter;
  • The PlayStation Network service’s MAU was 104 million people. A year ago, this figure was 114 million users.

According to Sony’s forecast, gaming revenue for the entire fiscal year should reach $27 billion, and operating profit — $ 2.9 billion.

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