Sony released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, related to the period between April and July, alongside an update on PS5 shipments.
According to the documents provided by the company 2.4 million PS5 units have been sold to retailers during the quarter, which brings the total lifetime shipments for the console to 61.6 million units.
For the sake of comparison, the Nintendo Switch has shipped 2.1 million units during the same quarter, with Sony’s more modern offering pulling slightly ahead of Nintendo’s console, which is seen as getting closer to the end of its cycle.
53.6 million software units were also sold during the quarter.
In the slide below you can get a bird-eye view of the performance of Sony’s Game and Network Services business segment, which includes the PlayStation brand and the PlayStation Network.
Sales for the PlayStation business were 93 billion yen, up 12% year-on-year, due to the impact of foreign exchange rates, an increase in first-party sales, and growth of network services sales, mainly focused on PlayStation Plus. This was partially offset by lower hardware unit sales (3.3 million PS5 units were sold during the same quarter in the previous fiscal year).
Operating income grew significantly by 33% to 16 billion yen (or 19.8 billion yen adjusted OIDBA, up 26%). This was due to growing first-party and network service sales, on top of higher unit sales of PS5 accessories, partly offset by growing costs.
Looking at the forecast for the full fiscal year, there have been changes from what was announced in May. Sales are expected to be 120 billion yen (up 3% from the previous guidance), while operating income is expected to be 10 billion yen (also up 3% from the previous guidance), due to the improved profitability of network services, mostly focused on PlayStation Plus.
Sony also mentions that PlayStation Network monthly active users during the quarter were 116 million. The number is significantly up year-on-year (from 108 million), but down quarter-on-quarter (from 118 million). Sony has not given any specific numbers for PlayStation Plus subscribers for quite a while.
Looking at the company as a whole, you can find the quarterly results in the slide below.
If you’d like to read more about gaming industry financial results, several have already been announced and we have dedicated reports, including Capcom, Koei Tecmo, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Konami, Nintendo, Square Enix, and Sega.
