Sony’s TV Business Records Yearly Profit for First Time in 11 Years

Sony sold 2.7 million Bravia LCD TVs globally in Q4 ended March 31, bringing its total sold for the fiscal year to 14.6 million, an 8.1 percent unit-sales increase from the previous fiscal year, the company said Thursday in the presentation charts accompanying its year-end earnings report. Its year-end result was a shade above the 14.5 million sets that its February forecast said it would sell. But Sony is projecting a 21.2 percent decline in LCD TV set sales to 11.5 million in the fiscal year ending March 2016. Sony Mobile Communications finished the year having sold 39.1 million smartphones globally. That’s flat with the 39.1 million it sold in the previous fiscal year and a shade under the 39.2 million it said in the February forecast it would sell. For the fiscal year ending March 2016, Sony sees its smartphone sales declining 23.3 percent to 30 million handsets. For the year overall, Sony corporately finished with a 5.8 percent sales increase to $68.5 billion ($1 = 120 yen) and a 159 percent improvement in operating income to $571 million, the company said in its financial release. Sony’s core Home Entertainment & Sound sector finished the year with a 3.3 percent sales increase to $10.1 billion and a $167 million operating profit, versus a year-earlier loss. Sony’s TV business finished in the black for the first time in 11 years, recording an operating profit of $69 million, the company said. “This improvement was primarily due to cost reductions and an improvement in product mix reflecting a shift to high value-added models, partially offset by the unfavorable impact of the appreciation of the U.S. dollar, reflecting the high ratio of U.S. dollar-denominated costs,” Sony said. Sony expects another profitable year for its TV business in the fiscal 12 months ending March 2016 but is being conservative in its forecasts, saying it thinks operating income will decline by about 40 percent in the TV sector.