Sony raised its full-year operating profit forecast on Thursday by 4% to 1.33 trillion yen ($9.01 billion), as it saw strong growth in games and a smaller impact than expected from tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Sony said it foresees a tariff impact of 70 billion yen, compared to the earlier 100 billion yen forecast in May.
The Japanese electronics, games and entertainment company said it sees a stronger profit outlook at its games business, which rose 36.5% in operating profit to 340 billion yen for the first fiscal quarter ended June 30.
PlayStation 5 hardware sales hit 2.5 million units in Q1, up from 2.4 million a year earlier. Full-game software was 65.9 million units, up from 53.6 million a year earlier. First-party titles sold 6.9 million units, up from 6.0 million a year earlier. Sony had 123 million monthly active users in Q1, up from 116 million a year ago.
All those numbers are pretty strong and they indicate Sony’s PS5 is still holding strong despite having launched back in 2020. Nintendo launched its Switch 2 in June and it has sold more than six million machines since then. But, again, Sony doesn’t seem hurt by it yet.
Sony was expected to report an operating profit of 288 billion yen. Sony’s shares rose 5% in trading during the day in Tokyo.
In games, Sony’s Q1 FY25 sales were 936.5 billion yen, up 71.6% from 864.9 billion a year earlier. Operating income was 148 billion yen, up 82.7% from 65.2 billion a year earlier.
Sony said its sales forecast for games in fiscal year 2025 (ending March 31, 2026) is 4,320 billion yen, up slightly from its previous forecast of 4,300 billion yen in May.
The first fiscal quarter went well due to strong sales of non-first-party game software titles including add-on content, an increase in sales from network services, offset by impact of foreign exchange rates. Operating income was impact by the increase in non-first-party game software sales and higher sales from network services. The forecast for the fiscal year for 2025 is lower slightly due to a delay in the launch of a first-party title.
Hardware revenue in Q1 FY25 was 153.3 billion yen, compared with 146.3 billion yen a year earlier. Game software sales were 540.2 billion yen in Q1, versus 486.5 billion a year earlier.
Physical software was 22.7 billion yen in the quarter, compared to 20.6 billion a year ago. Digital software was 199.5 billion yen, compared to 141.9 billion a year earlier. Add-on content was 292.6 billion yen, compared with 290.8 billion a year earlier.