Global consumer electronics giant Sony Corp reported Wednesday a more than 20-fold jump in net profit for the April-June quarter thanks to gains from subsidiaries including much improved Sony Ericsson, its mobile phone affiliate.
Net profit for the first quarter reached 23.3 billion yen (215 million dollars) compared to 1.1 billion yen for the same period a year earlier.
Despite the spectacular bottom line, revenue rose just 0.5 percent to 1.612 trillion yen and pre-tax profit slumped 81.5 percent to 6.6 billion yen.
"Net income increased significantly mainly due to the contribution from (affiliates) ... including that from (Japanese-Swedish mobile phone manufacturing joint venture) Sony Ericsson," said Sony chairman and chief executive officer Nobuyuki Idei in a statement.
Sony Ericsson contributed 5.8 billion yen to Sony's consolidated earnings, reversing a 5.8 billion yen loss for the same period last year.
Parent companies earn income or absorb losses from affiliates, proportionate to their equity holdings in the units.
Idei said that on a local currency basis Sony achieved increased revenue and profits but the appreciation of threally strong," said Yuhara. The average price of a 32-inch plasma display flat TV is around 400,000 yen in Japan but Yuhara said the domestic price for flat TVs keeps falling at a double-digit rate.
The global market for plasma display flat TVs is expected to grow 53 percent in the current year March 2005 to two million units and Sony aims to sell 330,000, some 17 percent of the total.
For liquid crystal display (LCD) flat TVs, the global market will likely double to seven million units and Sony hopes to sell 750,000, a roughly 11 percent market share. For digital cameras, the global market will likely grow by 50 percent to 65 million units with Sony planning to sell 15 million or 23 percent.
Sony said the company is waiting for US approval of its music merger with Bertelsmann of Germany. Last week the European Commission unconditionally cleared the merger of the music arms of Sony and Bertelsmann.
The company also noted its movie Spider-Man 2 was "a huge success" but that would be reflected by revenues in the July-September quarter as the film was released at the end of June.
Sony left its year to March 2005 forecasts unchanged, with net profit put at 100 billion yen and pre-tax profit at 160 billion yen on revenue of 7.55 trillion yen.
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