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Business News Labels & Publishers
Sony Corp confirms losses, with more to come
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 15 May 2014
Sony Corp’s net loss for the year ending 31 Mar was announced yesterday as ¥128.4 billion (£752 million), in line with the revised profit warning issued earlier this month and around three times the ¥41.5 billion (£243 million) loss the entertainment and electronics giant made last year. The company predicted further losses this year too, as it restructures and sells off unprofitable businesses.
Much of these losses came at the end of the year, as quarterly losses rose to ¥138.2 billion (£810 million), mainly due to costs resulting from the sale of the corporation’s PC business. Looking forward, the company predicts sales across the group will be flat this year, though without the big one-off costs of the last twelve months, the company should return to a ¥50 billion loss for the year to 31 Mar 2015.
On the plus side though, Sony’s music businesses are doing quite well, with revenues up 13.9% year-on-year to ¥503.3 billion (£2.95 billion). Though this was largely due to currency fluctuations (as money moves from Sony Music’s US base through to the Japanese parent company), with recorded music sales actually declining, despite some offset from an increase in digital income. Sony Music’s top selling artists of 2013/4 included One Direction, Daft Punk, Beyonce and Miley Cyrus.
On the publishing side, Sony/ATV’s EMI Music Publishing subsidiary was cited as the main source of a 34.9% increase in overall operating income (though again, currency fluctuations played a role here).
In summary: PCs bad, currency fluctuations good.
