Japan's Sony reports a hefty profit on the back of its blockbuster 'Spider-Man' movie

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony reported Thursday a 44% surge in its profit for the July-September quarter, largely on the box office success of its movie, “ Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”

Sony Group Corp .’s profit in the last quarter totaled 449.6 billion yen ($2.8 billion), up from nearly 311 billion yen in the same period a year earlier. Quarterly sales edged up 10% to 3.4 trillion yen.

Apart from its hit film , continuing strong demand for Sony’s PlayStation game consoles helped boost the Tokyo-based company’s bottom line.

Sony sold 2.6 million PlayStation 5 consoles in the second quarter, compared with 4 million a year ago. The PlayStation 5 went on sale starting in 2020, and sales for such machines tend to decline with time.

Like other technology companies, Sony is facing the problem of a computer chip shortage because of the artificial intelligence boom.

But, as with other Japanese giant exporters, it has benefitted from the weakness of the Japanese yen, which raises the value of the company’s overseas earnings when converted into yen.

The U.S. dollar has been trading at about 158 Japanese yen lately, up from about 154 yen a year ago.

By business segment, Sony said its operating profit and sales rose for the latest quarter in its games, music and pictures operations.

Sony, which makes the Walkman portable audio player, Xperia smartphones and Bravia TV sets, raised its profit forecast for the full fiscal year through March 2027 to 1.3 trillion yen from an earlier 1.2 trillion yen.

The new projection would mark an improvement from Sony's 1 trillion yen net profit in the previous fiscal year.

Sony's shares closed 7% higher in Tokyo trading, shortly before its financial results were announced.

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama