Sony Pictures saw its fiscal third-quarter profit jump to $212 million despite the novel coronavirus pandemic continuing to weigh heavily on the theatrical film business.
Sony Corp. reported the film unit’s October-to-December results Wednesday in Tokyo. The results represent a significant increase from the studio’s profit of $51 million in the same period in 2019, buoyed by lower advertising and marketing costs as cinemas in major markets remained shut amid the pandemic. There was also much higher television licensing and home entertainment income from titles released in 2019 and from the unit’s catalog as people remained at home due to lockdowns.
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Despite healthy profits, the cinema closures did, however, have a significant impact on Sony Pictures, with revenue falling to $1.83 billion in the quarter from $2.17 billion for the same period in 2019. The reasons were a collapse in box office and lower revenue from licensing and home entertainment sales for current titles.
Drilling down into the figures for the film unit, total theatrical revenue for the third quarter was just $14 million, down from $354 million for the corresponding period in 2019. Due to the pandemic, Monster Hunter was the film studio’s only major theatrical release in the period. For the same quarter the previous year, the studio boasted global hits including Jumanji: The Next Level and Venom.
At the group level, Sony Corp. reported a healthy $3.42 billion in quarterly operating profit helped by stellar demand for its PlayStation 5 gaming console, which hit stores last November. The company sold 4.5 million PS5s in 2020, despite production challenges.
Games & Network Services (G&NS), the segment which contains video games and console sales, saw sales jump 40 percent to $8.41 billion, driven largely by PS5 and related software sales, as well as a significant uptick in PlayStation Plus subscriptions, adding 1.5 new subs to take the overall figure to 47.4 million. There are now 114 million monthly active users on the PlayStation Network. G&NS was Sony’s top-performing segment.
The company’s music division saw a 22 percent increase in year-on-year sales, rising to $2.02 billion, with profits up at $569 million. The music segment benefitted from an increase in streaming revenues as well as the roaring success of Demon Slayer, the anime movie which became Japan’s biggest ever box office hit. Aniplex, the production company behind Demon Slayer, is an anime and music division of Sony Music Entertainment Japan.
