Sony Corporation on Tuesday announced its consolidated financial results for the second quarter of the calendar year, i.e. the first quarter of its 2017 fiscal year, boasting a massive surge in profits driven by its recovering imaging sensor business. The Japanese tech giant recorded $1.43 billion in profit in the three-month period ending June 30, 2.8 times more than it did in the same quarter last year. The figure also surpassed the company’s all-time record quarterly profit of $1.1 billion posted in 2007, indicating that its operations may be set to experience a historic year in terms of income. The Minato, Tokyo-based conglomerate said that its sensor business is the biggest factor that benefitted its recent performance, having recovered from a massive earthquake that it suffered through in 2016. The Kumamoto earthquake that occurred in mid-April last year essentially shut down one of Sony’s five imaging sensor factories, causing $1.03 billion in damages for the firm, according to its internal estimates.
Sony already outlined its road to recovery this spring, specifically mentioning its imaging business as a resurging revenue growth engine that will help it improve its bottom line, and that prediction is now seemingly coming true. The semiconductor manufacturing unit of the tech giant posted $501.8 million in profit over the same period, thus improving its bottom line by almost $1 billion compared to the first quarter of the firm’s 2016 fiscal year and returning to the black. This particular division that also manages the production of image sensors is expected to maintain its steadily increasing performance in the coming months, the Japanese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) said.
Based on its latest consolidated financials, Sony reiterated its previous forecast of 500 billion yen ($4.52 billion) in profit for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018, thus expecting to post the highest bottom line since 1998. Back in the early ’90s, the company’s income was largely generated through sales of PlayStation-branded hardware and software, though its business is more diversified today and continues to expand, with the tech giant announcing that it acquired Funimation, the distributor of the English versions of One Piece and Dragon Ball Z animes. The firm’s consumer electronics unit will continue focusing on profitability without trying to ramp up its sales figures in the immediate future, Sony said.