Japan's Sony Corp raked in its highest-ever quarterly profit after booking one-time gains related to its acquisition of EMI, though shrinking earnings at the game division could further prompt investors to look for next growth drivers.
According to Reuters, Sony has reinvented itself as an entertainment company with stable revenue streams from music content and gaming, after battling years of losses in TV and other consumer electronics that are more susceptible to earnings volatility.
On Friday, Sony said its third-quarter profit increased to 376.99 billion yen ($3.46 billion) from 350.84 billion yen a year earlier.
Operating profit at its music business rose to 147.1 billion yen from 39.3 billion yen as it booked a one-time gain of 116.9 billion yen from the EMI deal.
Sony completed the $2.3 billion acquisition late last year to become the world's largest music publisher.
The gaming business posted a profit of 73.1 billion yen, versus 85.4 billion yen, as the popularity of exclusive titles such as "Marvel's Spider-Man" failed to offset shrinking sales of the five-year-old PlayStation 4 console.
Investors are already moving beyond their cheer over Sony's successful reinvention and looking for hints about a successor to the firm's PlayStation 4 console. "The gaming business, which has been Sony's profit driver in the last couple of years, is set to peak out ahead of the launch of the next gaming console," Ace Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda said. "That's inevitable due to product cycle."
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