Japanese entertainment giant Sony said Friday it expects full-year profit to rise as revenue from some business units in the fourth quarter offset headwinds from rising memory prices.
Here’s a comparison of Sony’s fourth-quarter results and LSEG’s forecasts.
Sales: 3.36 trillion yen ($19.4 billion), compared to analyst estimates of 2.896 trillion yen. Operating income: 164 billion yen, compared to analyst forecasts of 278 billion yen.
Hardware sales in the fourth quarter fell to 110 billion yen compared to 183 billion yen in the same period last year, but strong results from Sony’s image sensor and music businesses boosted earnings.
Total sales of PlayStation 5 in the fourth quarter were 1.5 million units, down from 2.8 million units in the same period last year.
Sony expects its net profit for the fiscal year ending March 2027 to increase 13% to 1.16 trillion yen, compared to this year’s profit of 1.3 trillion yen.
The company announced that it will carry out share buybacks of up to 500 billion yen over the next year.
The company’s stock price has remained stable, with shares down 0.5% as of market close on May 8th.
Memory price hike
Sony is dealing with an unprecedented rise in memory prices. Memory is a key component of the PS5, and prices have skyrocketed and supply remains limited as memory manufacturers redirected inventory to huge demand from AI data centers.
In March, Sony announced that it would raise the price of its flagship game console PlayStation 5 for the second time in less than a year, citing “pressures from the global economic situation.”
The company said on Friday that it expects the impact of rising memory prices on its 2026 outlook to be limited to about 30 billion yen. We also expect hardware profitability for the next fiscal year to be consistent with the previous 12 months.
“In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the impact of memory market conditions gradually became apparent in the smartphone market, especially in the low-end market, but sales of our mobile sensors exceeded expectations, mainly due to strong shipments to key customers,” Sony said at a financial results briefing.
The company added that PS5 sales will depend on whether it can secure memory for the game console at a reasonable price.
Sony’s stock price had risen more than 20% each year for the previous three years, but since the start of 2026, it has fallen about 23%.
Operating profit for the fourth quarter was significantly lower than expected due to losses from a joint venture with Honda to scrap EV cars and impairment losses from the company’s acquisition of game developer Bungy in 2022.
Sony expects sales to decline slightly next fiscal year, forecasting sales of 12.3 trillion yen compared to 12.5 trillion yen this year.
