Sony’s smartphone sales continue to fall, PlayStation 4 continues to sell well

Sony’s smartphone sales fell from 3.4 to 1.6 million Xperias, more than 50 percent less than in the same quarter last year. PlayStation sales more than made up for this, with 3.9 million consoles shipped.

The decline in Xperia smartphone sales mainly occurred in Europe, South America and the Middle East. Due to reduced deliveries, quarterly sales fell from 172 billion yen to 117.8 billion yen and the division’s quarterly loss rose to 29.8 billion yen. This is evident from the quarterly figures released by the company on Tuesday. Sony expects 19 percent less turnover this year for its Mobile Communications Segment, with an annual loss of 95 billion yen, or 742 million euros.

The poor numbers of the mobile division contrast with the positive results of the gaming branch. Sony still managed to deliver 3.9 million copies of the PlayStation 4, which was introduced almost five years ago, in the past quarter. A year ago, there were not very many more at 4.2 million. The gaming division’s revenue rose 27 percent to 117 billion yen, helped by good software sales.

Sony managed to put away 400,000 fewer TVs, bringing the total to 2.8 million and sales fell by 9 percent. Digital camera sales also fell from 1.1 million to 0.9 million units, but quarterly sales rose as Sony sold more expensive models.

Sony’s profit rose 24 percent to 246.4 billion yen, or 1.7 billion euros. Turnover rose by 6 percent to 2183 billion yen, which is about 17 billion euros.