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Sony Reports Q3 FY12 Results - $2 Billion Loss, 6.5 M PS3's Shipped [Shares up 13%]

AZ2002

Banned
Actually... it is funny that you say that. Most Japanese I know seem to consider Panasonic *the* electronics company not Sony. But I have to be honest here... most Japanese that I know are from Osaka... the home of Panasonic.

nice one Nemesis ;) .really i wish that Panasonic recovers from this as 10$ billion is really big but i hope they turn it around maybe the strong yen and the earthquake inflated the numbers for them this year.

good to see Sega doing well :) .but Capcom really felt the lost MonHun sales when they didnt released one on the PSP this Christmas.
 

Cheebo

Banned
This has been a interesting last few years in the tech industry. We are seeing the Japanese tech giants collapse with companies like Apple and Samsung rising to take their place.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Is there anyone who actually thinks Sony products are higher quality than Samsung anymore? They were like 10 years ago, even 5 years ago but that isn't the case anymore.

Anybody who doesn't review on a product by product basis is fooling themselves.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Sony is after more than just BR royalties. They knew from their "failed" Betamax experience that you can make money elsewhere from a "standard" platform: http://seekingalpha.com/article/617...aulty-conclusion-from-the-vhs-betamax-war-sne

Article said:
But what happened with Beta? Yes, Sony eventually withdrew Beta VCRs from the consumer market. But Sony retargeted Beta videotape recording to a market that valued video quality more than tape length. The result: Sony dominated the professional and broadcast market from the 1980s well into the 1990s with its Betacam, Betacam SP, and Betacam Digital series of products. And Sony had immense pricing power and profitability in those markets. In just one year, Sony logged nearly a billion dollars in profit from its professional video technologies for the broadcast industry. That's about 10 times more profit than each manufacturer of VHS VCRs made during their peak.

What what in the butt? Is that (and the rest of the article) true?

Very interesting if so. But seeing as how BRDs are now officially the next generation of DVDs, isn't Sony now in the same problem that JVC, Panasonic etc. found themselves in?
 

jcm

Member
'Sacrifice' implies that Sony did this deliberately.

There's practically no way that is the case. Sony aren't dumb, they would have crunched the numbers - There's no way that Blu-Ray royalities made up for the money they lost on the PS3. It's a nice little money spinner, but nothing humongous. Sony thought they could have their cake and eat it too.


Here's a post I made a couple of years back:

Now obviously these figures are just estimates and will be off (for example, the royalty rates used to be higher, but that was when sales were lower, and this might be offset a little by the fact that I calculated everything at 1/3 when the real rate is lower). Either way, you get the idea - it wasn't worth it.

BR means much more to Sony than royalties. It's actually a good example of the "synergies" (ugh) they've been talking up. Sony makes movies to sell on BR, TV's to watch BR, BR players, PS3s, and computers. They also make the blank BR discs, and they duplicate the disks, and they make the disk duplication machines, and the OPUs inside in the readers/writers.

I don't know how exactly to calculate the financial importance of controlling the technology, but it's likely much more than a few hundred million in royalties.


Just like Saab+Sweden? How did that pan out?
I don't know anything about the political climate, but it's worth noting that Saab had about 3000 employees in Sweden. Sony has about 60,000 employees in Japan.
 
I don't know anything about the political climate, but it's worth noting that Saab had about 3000 employees in Sweden. Sony has about 60,000 employees in Japan.

Quick google search says population of Sweden is 10 million and Japan is 127 million. Percent of population isn't that much different.
 
I don't know how exactly to calculate the financial importance of controlling the technology, but it's likely much more than a few hundred million in royalties.
The problem is, they don't "control" the tech. As has been stated many times, they don't even own more than a third of it. Even if they did, Samsung and others have still been eating their lunch on players, TVs etc etc etc. I believe the only area they have a significant advantage in is duplication / mastering... and even that's changing.

This of course all aside from the fact that they would likely be selling around the same amount even if they didn't help create the tech, as evidenced by aforementioned companies who are eating their lunch. Not to mention the fact that all of Sony's businesses are very clearly listed in their financial reports... and none of them outside of music and financial services are making significant profit. We can see how consumer products are doing, we can see how pictures are doing, and most important to this discussion, we can see how Professional, Device & Solutions is doing.

It's not like these profits are hidden away in a magical division that we never get to see the results for.
 
Thanks to slight differences in what's reported as "shipments" and the vast difference in how spread out the regional launches were this isn't a perfect comparison, but PS3 is surprisingly close to PS1--it's just living in a time where that's not enough to be top dog.
Hardware

Software
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure. Especially when both were comprehensively overshadowed for several years by the Wii.

Its amazing to me the amount of mindshare MS have gained, as it vastly exceeds their actual achievements in the marketplace. Especially considering the sheer volume of units their Japanese competitors have shifted in other gaming products over the same time-span.

I'm not discounting MS success, just that its seems odd to me that pretty much anywhere in the world if you bought a piece of gaming hardware in the last 5 years the tyranny of numbers show its vastly more likely you bought Nintendo or Sony than MS.

That sort of ubiquity shows massive global brand power, and makes me think that despite the difficulties imposed by the state of the Yen, Japan remains decisively on top.
 

jcm

Member
Quick google search says population of Sweden is 10 million and Japan is 127 million. Percent of population isn't that much different.

Good point, thanks.

The problem is, they don't "control" the tech. As has been stated many times, they don't even own more than a third of it. Even if they did, Samsung and others have still been eating their lunch on players, TVs etc etc etc. I believe the only area they have a significant advantage in is duplication / mastering... and even that's changing.

This of course all aside from the fact that they would likely be selling around the same amount even if they didn't help create the tech, as evidenced by aforementioned companies who are eating their lunch. Not to mention the fact that all of Sony's businesses are very clearly listed in their financial reports... and none of them outside of music and financial services are making significant profit. We can see how consumer products are doing, we can see how pictures are doing, and most important to this discussion, we can see how Professional, Device & Solutions is doing.

It's not like these profits are hidden away in a magical division that we never get to see the results for.

Are you privy to Sony's actual books? Because otherwise, yes, the profits are indeed hidden away. How much was BR worth to Sony last quarter?
 
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure. Especially when both were comprehensively overshadowed for several years by the Wii.

Its amazing to me the amount of mindshare MS have gained, as it vastly exceeds their actual achievements in the marketplace. Especially considering the sheer volume of units their Japanese competitors have shifted in other gaming products over the same time-span.

I'm not discounting MS success, just that its seems odd to me that pretty much anywhere in the world if you bought a piece of gaming hardware in the last 5 years the tyranny of numbers show its vastly more likely you bought Nintendo or Sony than MS.

That sort of ubiquity shows massive global brand power, and makes me think that despite the difficulties imposed by the state of the Yen, Japan remains decisively on top.

It's just the american mindset. ps3 is pretty even over here in the uk, and has sold more in the rest of europe i think.

some of my friends have ps3s, some have 360's. its just more of an even spread over the world. whereas 360 has a massive lead in the us, and guess what, that's all that anybody ever talks about here.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure.
Sony went fron a very dominate 1st place to 3rd in a single generation whilst managing to lose all the profit they made on PS2. It can't be called anything else but a failure.
 
Are you privy to Sony's actual books? Because otherwise, yes, the profits are indeed hidden away. How much was BR worth to Sony last quarter?
No, you're right, they've clearly got hundreds of millions in profit coming in from it, but it's just not showing in the figures. Go and take a very close look at their financial reports, there's a hell of a lot of data in there beyond what we normally see in these threads.

The argument is not that they don't have meaningful blu-ray related income, of course they do... the argument is that profit from that is completely insignificant versus the billions of dollars they've lost on their trojan horse the PS3. If they were even moderately significant they would be getting a mention in either the reports or the earnings calls. They're not. The figures we can quantify for sure are the licensing revenues... and they're pitiful in the grand scheme of things. Everything else? Speculation at best.

It's like a mantra to some people. Buh buh blu-ray related revenues. You can strawman the argument that we can't possibly know how Sony would be doing if HD-DVD had won instead... but in reality we know Sony would be selling that stuff anyway if it worked out that way, just like Toshiba is selling blu-ray equipment. These "advantages" they have because they were one of the creators of the tech simply aren't borne out by the reality shown by their sales figures vs their (non blu-ray creating) competitors.
 

tino

Banned
This has been a interesting last few years in the tech industry. We are seeing the Japanese tech giants collapse with companies like Apple and Samsung rising to take their place.

Not only the Samsung and the Apple of the world, but Chinese ODM in various forms. For example, Vizio, which is an American company direct tie to a Chinese ODM, Taiwanese ODM like Asus and HTC, and then you have companies that come from China directly, like Huawei and ZTE. 2 years ago, most reporters didn't even know how to pronounce "Hua-wei".
 

mujun

Member
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure. Especially when both were comprehensively overshadowed for several years by the Wii.

Does not compute 1. It's pretty easy to understand, Sony went from total domination to third, that to some people is dismal favor. Other side of the coin and in straight numbers they are a very close second, not even close to a dismal failure. The coin might even have three sides when you consider that of the three Sony probably loses the most on hardware, whether that aspect is worthy of being labelled a dismal failure I have no clue.

Its amazing to me the amount of mindshare MS have gained, as it vastly exceeds their actual achievements in the marketplace. Especially considering the sheer volume of units their Japanese competitors have shifted in other gaming products over the same time-span.

Does not compute 2. So MS = the States and Sony + Nintendo = Japan? That is a serious reach and a pointless argument to boot.

I'm not discounting MS success, just that its seems odd to me that pretty much anywhere in the world if you bought a piece of gaming hardware in the last 5 years the tyranny of numbers show its vastly more likely you bought Nintendo or Sony than MS.

Does not compute 3. You are discounting their success. They've come a long way since their efforts last gen. However, when you measure their success against the other two then sure, they don't come off quite so successful. Still credit where it is due.

That sort of ubiquity shows massive global brand power, and makes me think that despite the difficulties imposed by the state of the Yen, Japan remains decisively on top.

Does not compute 4. So you only employ caveats when they suit your argument (state of the yen) and continue seemingly to consider Japan to be a "brand". This part really had me scratching my head.
 

Marco1

Member
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure. Especially when both were comprehensively overshadowed for several years by the Wii.

Its amazing to me the amount of mindshare MS have gained, as it vastly exceeds their actual achievements in the marketplace. Especially considering the sheer volume of units their Japanese competitors have shifted in other gaming products over the same time-span.

I'm not discounting MS success, just that its seems odd to me that pretty much anywhere in the world if you bought a piece of gaming hardware in the last 5 years the tyranny of numbers show its vastly more likely you bought Nintendo or Sony than MS.

That sort of ubiquity shows massive global brand power, and makes me think that despite the difficulties imposed by the state of the Yen, Japan remains decisively on top.

I agree totally.
What else amazes me is how successful the 360 is even though it has one of the worse failure rates among electronics. What the PS3 has for it, is the power that proves how it could be turned around. Considering everything against it, it really has been a success all of its own.
 

Taurus

Member
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure. Especially when both were comprehensively overshadowed for several years by the Wii.

Its amazing to me the amount of mindshare MS have gained, as it vastly exceeds their actual achievements in the marketplace. Especially considering the sheer volume of units their Japanese competitors have shifted in other gaming products over the same time-span.

I'm not discounting MS success, just that its seems odd to me that pretty much anywhere in the world if you bought a piece of gaming hardware in the last 5 years the tyranny of numbers show its vastly more likely you bought Nintendo or Sony than MS.

That sort of ubiquity shows massive global brand power, and makes me think that despite the difficulties imposed by the state of the Yen, Japan remains decisively on top.
And here is the reason:

Last gen

PS2 - 77.05% (154 million)
XB - 11.98% (24 million)
GC - 10.98 (22 million)

This gen

Wii - 42.63% (94 million)
X360 - 29.54% (64 million)
PS3 - 27.83% (61 million)

Sorry if the numbers aren't exact. These numbers are very hard to spin. Some gained a lot of customers when someone lost a shitload of them. Since this thread is about financial report one can also say that some gained something (more or less) to their war chest when someone lost everything they had earned since they entered console business.
 

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
I think that's because of Kaz's plans to revive the company - cutting out unprofitable ventures. Purely based on optimism.
 

Miles X

Member
It's just the american mindset. ps3 is pretty even over here in the uk, and has sold more in the rest of europe i think.

X360 is pretty far ahead in the UK compared to PS3, actually I believe it's its most popular country in terms of marketshare, attach ratio ect. Exactly why multiplatform SW in the UK does better ratio wise than the US vs PS3 ...
 
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure.
Not that hard to figure out, one product has made money while increasing it's market share the other has lost billions while losing market share.
 
Not necessarily true. If Sony had held onto the dominant position they gained in the previous gen they might have had more first party software, given more original game ideas more chances, funded more JRPGs, etc.

The decision to use the PS3 as a trojan horse for blu-ray has its positive aspects and negative for both the company and the consumers.
Err, Sony has MUCH better first party output this gen than they did when they were "dominant". I really have no idea how you came to that conclusion, that a company that's kicking the competition will invest more. It's always the other way around, they get complacent.

The anti-bluray spin is getting pretty laughable in here.
 

spwolf

Member
Sony should consider losing more money next quarter: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SNE

sonystockn6dv8.png


:p

another reason is that their released financial guidance yesterday for q3, and it showed how they actually made 300 million in profit for Q3, before the writing off SLCD and JV Sony Ericsson (they wrote off 500mil for SE purchase). Thats despite TV business losing money, despite thai floods, despite Yen and actually paying $350 million in profit taxes.

corporate business... not so simple :)
 

AZ2002

Banned
I think that's because of Kaz's plans to revive the company - cutting out unprofitable ventures. Purely based on optimism.

Almost assuredly, but it's more fun to imply it's due to losing money.

its not just optimism but facts.they will be profitable next year :)


Sony CFO: aims for $2.6 billion oper profit next FY
TOKYO | Thu Feb 2, 2012 8:18am EST


(Reuters) - Sony Corp aims to return to the black on an operating basis and achieve about 200 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in operating profit in the next fiscal year, as it looks to halve losses in its TV business, CFO Masaru Kato told reporters.

The Japanese consumer electronics company earlier on Thursday slashed its operating income forecast to a loss of 95 billion yen for the current year ending in March, from a profit of 20 billion yen in its previous outlook, stung by a slide in sales at its TV unit as well as a strong yen and other factors.



http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/us-sony-profit-idUSTRE8110J120120202
 

TheOddOne

Member
Sony's Hirai: We could be in 'serious trouble'
ony president Kazuo Hirai, who took over the role recently, has admitted that the company has tough times ahead, thanks to "one issue after another."

Hirai was named the new Sony president and CEO earlier this week, having taken over the role from former president Sir Howard Stringer. He was instrumental in the early marketing success of Sony's then-new PlayStation video game brand in the mid-1990s.

However, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Hirai said, "I thought turning around the PlayStation business was going to be the toughest challenge of my career, but I guess not. It's one issue after another. I feel like 'Holy shit, now what?'"

With Sony's stock at a low, plus third quarter declines in revenue and a swing to losses year-over-year, Hirai also noted that he needs to make some tough decisions about the future of the company.

"We really need to buckle down and be realistic," he explained. "I don't think everybody [working at the company] is on board, but I think people are coming around to the idea that if we don't turn this around, we could be sitting in some serious trouble."

He added, "We can't just continue to be a great purveyor of hardware products, even though some people expect us to do that."
 

VALIS

Member
I still find it puzzling that despite global shipments of PS3 and 360 being within 5% of each other, one is regarded as a runaway hit the other a dismal failure. Especially when both were comprehensively overshadowed for several years by the Wii.

Its amazing to me the amount of mindshare MS have gained, as it vastly exceeds their actual achievements in the marketplace. Especially considering the sheer volume of units their Japanese competitors have shifted in other gaming products over the same time-span.

I'm not discounting MS success, just that its seems odd to me that pretty much anywhere in the world if you bought a piece of gaming hardware in the last 5 years the tyranny of numbers show its vastly more likely you bought Nintendo or Sony than MS.

That sort of ubiquity shows massive global brand power, and makes me think that despite the difficulties imposed by the state of the Yen, Japan remains decisively on top.

Did you see the numbers earlier in the thread where the PS2 had like 80% (75%?) of the global market at the time? Playstation went from king to also ran in a few years. No one in their wildest imaginations in 2005-06 were predicting that.

Also, 360 gets more buzz because it's the hot console the last few years, while the Wii has been tailing off, dramatically so in the last year.
 
Shares aren't really up 13%. They dropped yesterday by 7-8% after the results came out so more than half the gains are just getting back to the pre earnings release level since trading of the actual shares in Japan didn't drop like the ADR.

I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with. I haven't claimed that the blu-ray profit outweighs the billions lost on the PS3. I said there is more to the business for Sony than royalties. As best as I can tell, you agree with me.

As far as how much more, neither one of us knows, and there isn't enough in the financial reports to quantify it. If you think I'm wrong about that, prove it, don't just handwave.
Home Audio and Video did a total of 2.5 billion in Revenue for the last 9 months. Considering how competitive that industry is, there just isn't enough of a profit margin for the home blu ray business to have any kind of meaningful profits.

And the division that contains all of the corporate blu ray and component products lost money so I'm not really sure where else the profits would be hiding.
 

jcm

Member
No, you're right, they've clearly got hundreds of millions in profit coming in from it, but it's just not showing in the figures. Go and take a very close look at their financial reports, there's a hell of a lot of data in there beyond what we normally see in these threads.

The argument is not that they don't have meaningful blu-ray related income, of course they do... the argument is that profit from that is completely insignificant versus the billions of dollars they've lost on their trojan horse the PS3. If they were even moderately significant they would be getting a mention in either the reports or the earnings calls. They're not. The figures we can quantify for sure are the licensing revenues... and they're pitiful in the grand scheme of things. Everything else? Speculation at best.

It's like a mantra to some people. Buh buh blu-ray related revenues. You can strawman the argument that we can't possibly know how Sony would be doing if HD-DVD had won instead... but in reality we know Sony would be selling that stuff anyway if it worked out that way, just like Toshiba is selling blu-ray equipment. These "advantages" they have because they were one of the creators of the tech simply aren't borne out by the reality shown by their sales figures vs their (non blu-ray creating) competitors.

I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with. I haven't claimed that the blu-ray profit outweighs the billions lost on the PS3. I said there is more to the business for Sony than royalties. As best as I can tell, you agree with me.

As far as how much more, neither one of us knows, and there isn't enough in the financial reports to quantify it. If you think I'm wrong about that, prove it, don't just handwave.


"Holy shit, what now?" is just about the most concise analysis of Sony I've ever read.
 

AZ2002

Banned
another reason is that their released financial guidance yesterday for q3, and it showed how they actually made 300 million in profit for Q3, before the writing off SLCD and JV Sony Ericsson (they wrote off 500mil for SE purchase). Thats despite TV business losing money, despite thai floods, despite Yen and actually paying $350 million in profit taxes.

corporate business... not so simple :)

exactly they are already saved and there is no need for bailing out crap talk :p and without those factors they will return to black next FY.check Sony CFO comments above forecast operating profit 2012/2013= $2.6 billion dollar :)
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Shares aren't really up 13%. They dropped yesterday by 7-8% after the results came out so more than half the gains are just getting back to the pre earnings release level since trading of the actual shares in Japan didn't drop like the ADR.

Ah I see, I'm losing track of my days with so many reports.
 

NIGHT-

Member
Ouch!! Doesn't sound like Sony has the funds to make Ps4 as powerful as gaf believes. Gonna be an interesting gen. Sony is in a bad spot.
 

wrowa

Member
its not just optimism but facts.they will be profitable next year :)


Sony CFO: aims for $2.6 billion oper profit next FY
TOKYO | Thu Feb 2, 2012 8:18am EST


(Reuters) - Sony Corp aims to return to the black on an operating basis and achieve about 200 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in operating profit in the next fiscal year, as it looks to halve losses in its TV business, CFO Masaru Kato told reporters.

The Japanese consumer electronics company earlier on Thursday slashed its operating income forecast to a loss of 95 billion yen for the current year ending in March, from a profit of 20 billion yen in its previous outlook, stung by a slide in sales at its TV unit as well as a strong yen and other factors.



http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/us-sony-profit-idUSTRE8110J120120202

Predictions and estimations aren't facts, however you want to spin it.
 

AZ2002

Banned

i trust him turning around the PS3 situation was a magnificent achievement,and he showed great leadership to turn things around for the gaming division after Ken and stringer did everything to destroy it with their backward and stubborn ways.do you know that Stringer doesn't even speak Japanese what a joke who gave him the post in the first place.and people wonder why SCEJ is useless (takao and the guys here) 0_o
 

spwolf

Member
exactly they are already saved and there is no need for bailing out crap talk :p and without those factors they will return to black next FY.check Sony CFO comments above forecast operating profit 2012/2013= $2.6 billion dollar :)

well forecasts are just forecasts... but they actually made $300mil in Q3 without SLCD/SE writeoffs in the books, which is important thing to note here.
 

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
Shares aren't really up 13%. They dropped yesterday by 7-8% after the results came out so more than half the gains are just getting back to the pre earnings release level since trading of the actual shares in Japan didn't drop like the ADR.
Sony Corp. jumped the most in more than 10 months in Tokyo trading after incoming Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai said he will close down some underperforming businesses to help revive the unprofitable company.

The shares jumped as much as 8.9 percent, the biggest intraday gain since March 16, to 1,446 yen. They ended the morning session of trade at 1,427 yen, up 7.5 percent.
“The shares are rising on expectations that the company will be on track for rebuilding,” Makoto Sengoku, a market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities Co., said by phone. “All the bad factors have already been reflected.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...m-hirai-will-rebuild-company-tokyo-mover.html
 
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