Sony has reported a 33.5% jump in quarterly profit as sales improved in its PlayStation 4 video game business.
Tokyo-based Sony kept its full-year profit projection unchanged at 140 billion yen (£808 million), which would be a reversal from red ink in the previous fiscal year.
Sony recorded a 120 billion yen (£693 million) October-December profit. Sales for the fiscal third quarter edged up 0.5% to 2.58 trillion yen (£14.9 billion).
Sony, which also makes Bravia TVs and Xperia mobile phones, has been undergoing a marathon restructuring to focus on more profitable operations.
Sony's sales were still struggling in image sensors and mobile communications. But it got a lift from better sales of PS4 game software as well as the machines.
The Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate, which also has a music division, benefited from the strong performances of the films Spectre and Hotel Transylvania 2.
Sales in its music business improved with the release of Adele's new album 25. One Direction's Made In The A.M. was also a strong seller.
The results appear to show that Sony is gradually getting its restructuring under control, after selling some assets, such as its Vaio personal computer business and its stake in Japanese game maker Square Enix.
But its once strong brand image has lost much of its lustre in the face of competition from Apple in digital music players and smartphones as well as Samsung in TVs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here