Sony swings to profit in Q2, raises profit outlook

The entity had a net loss of 26.3 billion yen in the year-ago period, Sony said in a statement.The company's sales rose to 1.73 trillion yen for the second quarter ended September 30, 2010, from 1.66 trillion yen in the same period last fiscal. Thus registering a gain of 4.3 per cent primarily due to an increase in sales in all segments other than music.
Japaneses firm has attributed its good quarter numbers to growth in games and personal computer business and raised its profit target for the fiscal 2011.

The electronic firm has raised its outlook and now expects to post a net income of 70 billion yen for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, from 60 billion yen projected in July.
The company has downgraded its revenue target to 7.40 trillion yen for the fiscal year through March from 7.60 billion yen earlier projected citing stronger yen.

The company's, networked products and services segment business, including the game business and PCs, sales rose by 5 per cent year-on-year to 369.1 billion yen.

"This was mainly due to an increase in PC sales brought on by increased unit sales, which resulted from expanding market share in all regions  driven by enhanced product appeal," the company said in a statement.

While game business sales in total decreased year-on-year but sales of PlayStation 3, hardware and software increased year-on-year and benefited from the introduction of PlayStation Move in the current quarter.

Meanwhile, the company's subsidiary Sony Ericsson has also returned to a profit of 51 million euros during the second quarter of the year from a loss of 165 million euros in the same quarter of 2009.