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source from:ft
https://www.ft.com/content/7ff94850-2bf7-11e7-bc4b-5528796fe35c
Sony forecasts its highest profits in 20 years
Expectations for fiscal 2017 mark reversal from years of writedowns
YESTERDAY by: Kana Inagaki in Tokyo
Sony is targeting its highest operating profit in two decades, marking a reversal from years of writedowns and lagging growth of its consumer electronics products.
Having stemmed losses from its television and mobile phone divisions, the steady recovery of the Japanese electronics and entertainment group is driven by demand for camera sensors used in smartphones and its PlayStation gaming business.
For the new financial year ending March 2018, Sony forecast its operating profit to rise 73 per cent from a year earlier to ￥500bn ($4.5bn). This would be the highest since the company booked a record profit of ￥525.7bn in the 1997-1998 fiscal year, and would put the company on track to achieve its target of 10 per cent return on equity.
The expected surge in profits follows a grim year for the company, which was affected by production disruptions after a series of earthquakes in Japan and a $1bn writedown of Sony’s struggling film business.
The company hopes to put behind a bleak history of missed business targets and goodwill impairment charges of almost ￥500bn in the past three years alone.
“We do acknowledge that our track record over the past three years has been dismal,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, Sony’s chief financial officer, on Friday. “Fiscal 2017 will be a year to deliver results.”
In the January to March quarter, Sony booked net profit of ￥27.7bn from a year-earlier loss of ￥88.3bn, while revenue increased 4.4 per cent to ￥1.9tn.
All six of the group’s electronics segments turned profitable during the fiscal fourth quarter for the first time in two decades, a feat made possible by its PlayStation business, which performed well both in terms of console demand and sales from software and streaming services.
The company will continue to make heavy investments in image sensors, which are used in Apple’s iPhones, in anticipation of continuing growth in smartphone cameras for mid- and high-end phones in China.
Sony forecast a 24 per cent growth in sales of image sensors for the current fiscal year, and disclosed an investment plan of ￥110bn to ramp up image sensor production.
“There has been an unfair amount of scepticism regarding Sony’s mid-term (operating profit) target of ￥500bn,” said Atul Goyal, an analyst at Jefferies, ahead of the results
We believe when Sony meets and exceeds those targets handily, that will generate strong shareholder returns,”.
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