SONY MUSIC STEADY
In Sony Corporation’s earnings report for its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, music group sales increased approximately 3% on a local currency basis, which allowed the division to record an operating profit, compared with an operating loss in the same period last year. Using U.S. accounting standards, sales in the music group increased 12.75% to 147.3 billion yen ($1,188 million), good for an operating profit of 4.4 billion yen ($36 million) compared with an operating loss of 5 billion yen in the first quarter last year. And that's just in black market Playstation2 sales.
Sony doesn’t break out results for its U.S. music operations, but the report does say that music sales in the U.S. decreased and "an operating loss was recorded, although the amount of loss was smaller" than last year. Reasons given for the slowdown include "the timing of new releases, continued soft market conditions in a number of territories, and the continued strengthening of the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies." On the bright side, however, no mass layoffs took place during the quarter. Hey, let's break out the bubbly!
Sony’s companywide first-quarter results show less red ink than last year, though the "conditions in the economic environment in which Sony operates became more difficult" during the period due to economic slowing the world over, according to the report. Revenue increased 4.6 percent relative to the same period last year, to 1.638 trillion yen ($13.209 billion), while the company’s net loss narrowed to 30 billion yen ($243 million), which represents about a third of last year’s net loss of 92.3 billion yen ($745.6 million). Reducing to simplest terms, this means the company as a whole lost about two-thirds less of a loss than the loss they lost last year. And that's the good news.
