Sony's Q3 profit surges over 7-fold to $871 million

04 Feb 2010

Consumer electronics giant Sony today reported a seven-fold rise in its fiscal third quarter (October-December 2009) earnings to $871 million, boosted by cost-cuts and rising sales of its Vaio laptops and PS3s consoles, as also blockbuster movie releases.

Sony said its net profit for the October-December quarter jumped to 79.2 billion yen ($871 million) from 10.4 billion yen a year earlier.

The Japanese electronics major reported an operating profit of 146.1 billion yen in the October-December 2009 quarter after booking an operating loss of 18 billion yen in the similar quarter a year earlier.

Sales of personal computers, movies and financial services products rose 4 per cent to 2.24 trillion yen. Sony also benefited from worldwide theater releases of `2012' and `Michael Jackson's This is It,' as well as home DVD sales.

Sony, which closed 18 per cent of its plants, eliminated 20,000 jobs and overhauled its supply chain to reduce costs by 330 billion yen, said it is still not completely out of the global economic downturn.

Sony's sales and profit have also been pushed by an ongoing restructuring and better currency exchange rates, the company said.