Sony announced their second quarter results today for the period ending December 30th 2015. The biggest news is that Sony have now sold In (Shipped to retailers) 37.7 Million units of their latest home console, PlayStation 4.

For the company as a whole, sales increased 0.5% year on year to ¥2,580.8 billion. Sales were essentially flat due to the performance in the mobile division offsetting sales from other divisions such as the Games and Network services division, PlayStation 4 software sales were particularly high this quarter. Operating income hit ¥202.1 billion which was significantly up compared to ¥182.1 billion that Sony had last year. It’s a welcome change for Sony and is very much thanks to Kaz Hirai’s management that has been able to take Sony from a company that was generating huge losses to one that is now turning a healthy profit. There is still some way to go for Sony but the PS4 and Gaming division is really helping Sony this year thanks to increased sales and profit.

Looking at the Game and Network services division , Net sales increased 10.5% year-on-year to ¥587.1 billion yen. This significant increase was primarily due to increases in PS4 software sales and PS4hardware unit sales, partially offset by a decrease in PlayStation®3 (“PS3”) software and hardware sales.. Operating income increased ¥40.2 billion year-on-year to ¥27.6 billion.This increase was primarily due to the increase in PS4 software sales as well as the absence in the current quarter of an 11.2 billion yen write-down of PS Vita and PS TV components recorded in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. Partially offsetting the increase in operating income were the negative impact of the appreciation of the U.S. dollar, reflecting the high ratio of U.S. dollar-denominated costs, and the decrease in PS3 software sales.

The PlayStation 4 continues to dominate the home console market selling in 8.4 million units during the quarter compared to 6.4 million in the same quarter last year. Sony’s full fiscal year forecast for PlayStation 4  stands at 17.5 million units. The original was 16 million back in March, it was later revised in June to 16.5 million and now stands at 17.5 million. This means that Sony plan to ship a total of 39.8 million units by March 31st 2016.

Please note that the 35.9 million number as of January 2nd 2016, previously announced by Sony, is a sell through number and accounts for the number of units sold to consumers, the 37.7m number announced today is a shipped number and so we can work out that approximately 1.8 million units were in channel at the end of last year.

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