Sony Sees Flat Annual Growth Due To Recent Quake Damages
Sony on Tuesday forecast operating profit to rise just 2 percent this business year, hurt by costs to repair an earthquake-damaged image sensor chip factory and slowing demand for smartphone components. Sony expects profit of 300 billion yen ($2.75 billion) for the year through March 2017.
Earnings at Sony have been revived in recent quarters, as brisk sales of its image sensors for smartphones mask slowing sales in other consumer electronics.
In late April, earthquakes shook the southern city of Kumamoto, home to one of Sony's five image sensor plants. The company partially resumed operations earlier this month.
Sony estimated the impact from the quake on its image sensor and digital camera operations would total 105 billion yen this business year. It said the impact on the company as a whole would be 115 billion yen.
Sony forecast its devices division, which includes image sensors, to book an operating loss of 40 billion yen, compared with the previous year's loss of 29.3 billion yen.
Sony also said that the expected loss at its devices segment factored in a 30 billion yen loss from cancelling development of some camera modules.
Profit at Sony’s games and network services business will rise to 135 billion yen, on anticipated sales of PS4 consoles this year. The company will also launch the PlayStation VR virtual-reality headset in 2016.
Last month, Sony predicted that profit at its movie business will climb 12 percent this fiscal year to 43 billion yen.
Profit in Sony’s music business will decline 28 percent to 63 billion yen, Sony forecast in April.