PlayStation 4 games, big screen TVs and a Marvel superhero movie lifted entertainment and tech powerhouse Sony to a massive second quarter.
Late Monday Los Angeles time, Sony reported revenue of $18.2 billion and earnings of 92 cents a share for the three months ending September 30, which the company classifies as its fiscal second quarter. That was well ahead of the $16.7 billion in revenue and earnings of 4 cents a share Sony hauled in during the same period last year. Analysts had estimated the company would report $17.6 billion in revenue and earnings of 54 cents a share.
Sony’s video games division, whose operating income grew 188 percent year-over-year behind a surge in PlayStation 4 software sales, and home entertainment, which reported a 39 percent gain in operating income, led the way for the Japanese conglomerate. The company credited a shift in the product line of TVs to higher-value models for the improved performance of the home entertainment segment.
And one quarter after Sony’s pictures division finished in the red — and despite a slow summer box office in general — the studio bounced back behind “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which went on to gross nearly $880 million worldwide after its July 7 release, and “Baby Driver,” another successful mid-year flick. The division earned $68 million in operating income, a 140 percent jump compared with the corresponding quarter last year.
However, Sony did lose its slate financing arrangement with Texas-based LStar Capital earlier this summer, as TheWrap exclusively reported. And even with the blowout success of “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” Sony currently ranks fifth out of all studios with 9.4 percent market share.
There have also been changes in its TV business. After losing Sony Pictures Television Presidents Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to Apple in July, the studio tapped former Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins to become its TV chairman earlier this month. And also this past quarter, Sony picked up a majority stake in anime distributor Funimation in a deal that valued the company at about $150 million and gives Sony some of the genre’s most popular titles, including “Dragon Ball Z”, “Cowboy Bebop” and “My Hero Academia.”
Sony’s stock has dipped 5 percent over the last three months but remains up 39 percent year-to-date.