Sony Group has reported growth in both sales and profits for its second quarter. The company has maintained its full-year profit forecast and has raised its sales outlook. In the second quarter, Sony's sales reached 2.9 trillion yen (approximately $195 billion), marking a 9% increase year-over-year. The net profit attributable to shareholders was 338.5 billion yen, equating to 55.74 yen per share, up from 200.1 billion yen, or 32.35 yen per share, in the previous year. Operating profit rose from 263 billion yen to 455.8 billion yen.
Looking ahead, Sony expects its net profit for the fiscal year 2024 to be 980 billion yen, a 1% increase from the previous year, with sales projected at 1.3 trillion yen, up 8.4%. The current sales forecast shows a decline of 2.4% to 12.71 trillion yen, compared to the previous expectation of a 3.2% drop to 12.6 trillion yen. The increase in sales was attributed to higher sales of third-party game software, favorable foreign exchange rates, and an increase in network services sales, including PlayStation Plus online service, partially offset by a decline in hardware sales. Operating income grew due to improved hardware profitability, increased third-party software sales, and higher network services sales.
Notably, Sony's second-quarter sales in its Gaming and Network Services (G&NS) division reached 1.0715 trillion yen ($70.1 billion), a 12% rise from the previous year. The operating income for the G&NS segment was 138.8 billion yen ($9.08 billion), showing a remarkable 2.8 times increase from the prior year. Sony now forecasts that its G&NS division will achieve revenue of 4.49 trillion yen ($293 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 2025, more optimistic than the 4.32 trillion yen ($282 billion) predicted in August. The operating income for this segment is also expected to rise by 35 billion yen for the fiscal year.
During the second quarter, hardware sales were 218.2 billion yen, down from 287.5 billion yen in the previous year. Game software sales reached 612.3 billion yen, surpassing last year's 479.3 billion yen. Digital software sales increased to 258.6 billion yen from 200.9 billion yen last year. This quarter, 3.8 million units of the Sony PS5 were sold, a decrease from 4.9 million units in the previous year. Game sales reached 77.7 million units, up from 67.6 million units last year, with first-party game sales at 5.3 million units, an increase from 4.7 million units a year earlier. Monthly active users on the PlayStation Network grew to 116 million from 107 million a year ago.
In January, Sony announced that it had sold 50 million PlayStation 5 consoles, which is impressive but still lags behind the PlayStation 4, which sold over 117 million units by October 2024. Sony has not updated its cumulative total since. In May, PlayStation head Jim Ryan retired, and Hideaki Nishino and Hermen Hulst took over as CEOs of the SIE Platform Business Group and SIE Studio Business Group, respectively.
