For the fiscal year through March, Sony recorded a 3% decline in profit at
Sony’s operating profit was hurt by its financial services segment, which is being partially spun off next year. Sony's chief financial officer and president,
“We hope to improve our profitability and build our resilience to an ever-changing business environment,” he said in an online presentation.
Totoki declined to comment on media reports that Sony was interested in purchasing
In that report, first in the
Sony would be the majority shareholder and Apollo would have a minority stake, according to a person familiar with the deal, who requested anonymity because details of the offer have not been made public.
Sony’s movies, music, video games and imaging solutions units did well in the past fiscal year. Paid subscription growth at Crunchyroll, a
In music, the most successful releases for the latest quarter included SZA’s “SOS” and Travis Scott’s “Utopia,” while Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” recently reached No. 1 on Billboard and other nations’ rankings.
In films, the biggest hits over the past fiscal year were “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which grossed
The strikes in
In February, Sony said it was cutting about 900 jobs in its PlayStation game division, or about 8% of its global workforce, citing changes in the industry that required restructuring.
But Sony set a positive tone and stressed online gaming was going strong, as well as console sales. PlayStation 5 sales totaled 20.8 million machines for the fiscal year through March. This year, Sony expects to sell 18 million PS5 consoles. Among the recent hit game software for the PS5 was “Helldivers 2,” a shooting game, according to Sony.
Like other Japanese companies, Sony has benefited from the weakening yen, which boosts the value of Japanese exporters’ overseas earnings when converted into yen. The
Sony projected that its profit for this fiscal year will fall to
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