Today Sony announced its financial results for the fiscal year 2020, which ended on March 31. First of all, we get an update on PS5 and PS4 units shipped during the latest quarter.
3.3 million PS5 and 1 million PS4 units were purchased by retailers worldwide, which means that the grand total for PS4 as of March 31 is at 116 million units shipped. PS5 has shipped 7.8 million units in its lifetime. These are record-breaking numbers for a console launch.
Below you can check out an overview of the performance of the Game & Network Services business (which includes both PlayStation and PlayStation Network), with all the relevant figures including software sales and more.
Revenue for the Games & Network Services business for the whole fiscal year increased significantly (678.7 billion yen/+34%) year-on-year due to growth in both software and hardware sales.
Operating income also saw a significant increase year-on-year (103.8 billion yen) due to growth in software sales and network services sales (mainly, thanks to PlayStation Plus), partly offset by the fact that the PS5 was sold at a loss and expenses related to the launch of the console.
Additional documentation about the gaming business’ performance reveals that the PlayStation Plus subscriber total was at 47.6 million as of March 31. On the other hand, PlayStation Network had 109 million monthly active users.
The forecast for the next fiscal year (between April 2021 and March 2022) mentions the expectation of another 9% increase in sales (243.7 billion yen) due to predicted further growth in hardware sales partly offset by an expected decrease in non-first-party software sales.
The forecast for operating income mentions a decrease by 17.2 billion yen due to the drop in third-party software sales mentioned above and growing game development costs, partly offset by expected growth in revenue from first-party games and an improvement in profitability for the hardware side (likely due to an expected decrease in manufacturing costs for PS5).
Speaking of Sony as a whole, all income numbers are in the black, showing year-on-year growth for both revenue and profit both for the whole fiscal year and for Q4.
If you’d like to compare, you can read our dedicated article about the previous financial results announced in February.
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