Sony shipped just 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in the key holiday season, up only marginally from 3.3 million in the previous quarter, showing the electronics giant is still struggling to meet demand amid an ongoing global supply chain crunch.
As of December 31, 17.3 million units were shipped, nearly 3 million fewer than the PlayStation 4 in the same time period after its release. However, the PS4 was easy to find on store shelves in its first year on sale, and the real demand for the PS5 was even harder to gauge.
The gaming division’s revenue fell 8 percent year-on-year to 813.3 billion yen ($7.09 billion) in its latest results as supply issues continued, but operating profit rose 12.1 percent to 92.9 billion yen ($810 million).
PlayStation is now Sony’s most important single unit, accounting for a quarter of the company’s overall revenue and nearly a quarter of operating profit. Sony cut its full-year 2021 gaming revenue forecast by 6% to 2.73 trillion yen due to lower-than-expected PS5 sales, suggesting its supply challenges will persist, at least in the short term.
Operating profit forecasts were raised 6% to 345 billion yen. Full-year PS5 shipments are expected to reach 11.5 million units in 2022. Sony’s vital image sensor division had a good quarter, with sales up 22% year over year to 57.8 billion (~$504 million).
Operating profit rose 26 percent to 13.3 billion yen ($116 million), although Sony attributed 12 billion of that to a weaker yen. Sony said the jump in revenue was driven by increased sales of image sensors for smartphone cameras, a large part of which were high-end products.
Sony’s film division saw a big jump in revenue, with revenue soaring 141% year over year to 461.2 billion yen ($4.02 billion). Content titles such as “Spider-Man” and “Venom” contributed to theater revenue that was much higher than the previous year, while Sony said its TV production business was boosted by licensing “Seinfeld.”