Sony is slowly returning to form after the company's second-quarter earnings turned out to bring a decent amount of profit. Leading the charge here is the PlayStation business, followed by the image sensor business.
The business of PlayStation has seen a 16.5 percent increase in profit compared to the same period last year, when Sony actually posted a loss. This is due to the success of the PlayStation 4 as it moves ahead of competing products such as the Nintendo Wii U and Xbox One.
The gaming division saw an operating profit of $199 million. This is expected to increase in the next quarter as Sony recently slashed the price of the PlayStation 4 for the holidays and beyond.
The image sensor business also experienced a boost of around 16 percent compared to a year ago. This is good news as Sony moves to turn this into its own corporation by separating it from the core business. Furthermore, Sony is also looking into acquiring Toshiba's sensor division in the future.
While most things at Sony right now are doing relatively well, the company is still struggling in the smartphone department. Its Xperia line of devices are not doing well, and this has been a trend for years now.
The Android market is packed with intense competition, and because of this it is going to take something spectacular for Sony to break free in similar ways to Samsung, LG, and Huawei.
The mobile division experienced an operating loss of $172 million and a revenue of $2.33 billion. Sales are down by 15.2 percent, which makes us wonder if the company plans to exit the smartphone race as it did with the PC market.
Overall, Sony made ¥33.6 billion ($280 million) in net profit and ¥1.89 trillion ($15.8 billion) in revenue. Not where the company wants to be right now, but it is a start and a huge boost for future prospects.
We suspect the company will look into other ways of getting the smartphone business up and running before it has to make a tough decision.
