The full financial report from Sony can be downloaded at http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/12q4_sony.pdf. The slides are available here: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/viewer/12q4/
The overall company results: The good news is that for the first time since 2008 Sony made a net profit of $458 million.
Imaging Division: Sales decreased 4.1% year-on-year (a 7% decrease on a constant currency basis) to 730.4 billion yen (7,770 million U.S. dollars). This decrease was primarily due to a significant decrease in unit sales of compact digital cameras reflecting a contraction of the low-end of the market as well as a significant decrease in unit sales of video cameras reflecting a contraction of the market, partially offset by significantly higher sales of interchangeable single-lens cameras and the favorable impact of foreign exchange rates.
Outlook for the Fiscal Year ending March 31, 2014: For March 2014 Sony expects to increase the sales and operating revenue by a +10.3%. The Imaging division should grow to: “Overall segment sales are expected to increase due to a significant increase in sales of broadcast- and professional-use products and interchangeable single-lens cameras. Operating income is expected to increase significantly due to the impact of the increase in sales.”
Management focus and topics: In the imaging division Sony has implemented investments for growth such as expanding production capacity for its cutting-edge and competitive CMOS image sensors.
SAR general summary: Sony knows well that to grow in the digital camera market they have to focus on the high end professional market. That is their goal. The NEX system is selling well and sales should increase in this year (thanks to the new NEX-7 successor and new NEX lenses). But it’s the future Full Frame Alpha and NEX strategy that will mark the success or fail of their goals. Can’t wait to see what kind of (game changing?) products they will announce in early 2014!!!
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There’s a summary of the results on the BBC here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22460957
However, looks like Sony top brass are far from complacent:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22364481
Who cares? This doesn’t mean cameras getting better in future, or owners of existing cameras getting software updates.
Those of us who want Sony to continue producing cameras for our lenses should care.
The profits of Imaging Products & Solutions have felt since past year.
If Sony ever sells their photography branch to someone else, we at last might see new OVF DSLRs for A-mount.
It’s quite unlikely for them to sell the profitable sales of system cameras.
1.4 billion yen income with 730 billion yen sales, is that profitable?
Yes it is.
Funny. It seems like you DO care about what happens to Sony.
Don’t want or need OVFs. The EVF on my A99 is more than sufficient.
If OVF A-mount body appears I would be a little happier, regardless of me using it or not. Redaing complains about missing OVF is a small disturbance to me.
We NEED A99 firmware updates YESTERDAY, Sony!
A setting for a 7-exposure HDR bracketing in RAW format would be NICE!!!
Instead of lowering the price to fight competitors, how about matching their basic features??
Nikon D800 has it’s HDR ducks in a row. Why not you, Sony??????
Give us the RAW!!!!
I hope that the profit is NOT due to sales of real estates…
My thoughts exactly…
That’s EXACTLY where the profit came from. Namely, the sale of that Madison Ave building in NYC.
(along with selling some Tokyo buildings and some healthcare websites)
Operational income is still more than 1 billion USD before accounting for the sale of the buildings etc.
Restructuring costs didn’t help though.
Almost all of their operational income comes from their financial services division. The rest of them are pretty much only making enough to stuff down the money pit that is the consumer electronics division.
Which is how almost all larger companies work doday.
What comes under devices?
Sales were down, but income up.
Any discussion of Japanese corporate profits absent the changes in the lowered valuation of the yen versus the dollar misses a key portion of the analysis and near-term profitability outlook.
The importance of high end systems supports my views.
Sony must produc BOTH the highest res camera of any consumer camera made and a super low light high iq camera.
Dude, please give it a rest!
I’ll rest when I can go out in the field and shoot the high resolution pictures I want! Not until then.
You suck
One of your more rational arguments.
Sony have been selling off assists left right and centre didn’t you notice ?
sadly , these profits are almost entirely derived from the sale of worldwide assets such as the sale of its Tokyo building for $1.2 billion dollars take these one off selling the family silver deals and alas they would still be deep in the red.
Again …..
….. lots of people talking here who are not at all business minded.
Look at a lot of corporations (e.g. Siemens) who make the majority of their profits through their financial services department [or whatever they may call those activities]……
…… the real production is just a job-creation-scheme ……
Someone has to make the money to buy their Services, after all !!! :-DDD
Do you think Sony’s gearing up for making new sensors for the mirrorless a-mount? It would make sense cos nikon are unlikely to want/need pdaf on any of the sensors sony makes for them, so they will need more manufacturing capacity to make both lines…
Nikon already buys sensors with PDAF pixels from Aptina. And Canon puts PDAF-on sensors in their low end DSLRs. So Nikon might be there as well.
Interesting that they point out increased DSLR sales projections for next year in their financial report. If it is such a small business that some claim, why mention it at all. And why state that unless they have something worthwhile up their sleeve.
/E
I’m sure it’s just from selling Cell phone and D800 sensors…..
Reading the financials cannot bring any smiles to anyone, the SEC 6-k http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313838/000115752313002537/a50626770.htm is a lot more instructive than the Sony Japanese one. It clearly states that assets sales and insurance recovery are responsible for the positive outlook given by a quick read of the documents.
Whether Sony restructured it’s company by selling land and facilities is not relevant to it’s imaging division. The explanation of the data clearly says that lots of growth is being had at the A-Mount and NEX level. So no need to worry about Sony getting rid of one it’s more profitable divisions. In fact, expect them to invest more in these things.
The K-6 is quite explicit on that matter.There is a drop of 18% in the non-pro line of imaging, (page F-9. Since this is where both the A and Nex cameras resided, let’s not put hopes too high.
On the other hand, since Sony is on a path of restructuration, making senses finally of tis product line, there is some hope that the camera lines will be streamlined. The big moment being Photokina, in the fall of 2014.
Mind you, neither Canon nor Nikon have anything to brag about, my understanding is that sales are quite flat in the over $2,000 sale segment (that is camera plus basic lens). In the top of the line, it’s replacement of 5 to 6 years old cameras. Let’s be honest, any camera that sells for over $1,000 is of a much better quality than 5 years ago. Mirror cycle typically used to be in the 100k range years back, but unless the photog is covering sports in hi-temp, they lasted longer, I’ve not met a pro shooter that has had a mirror failure in years. Since there is so little visible improvement in quality between this year’s and last year model (even 4 or 5 years), a limit to the number of lenses one can work with, it’s a flat market.
Also coming are the Chinese, ask the Germans what they went thru in the early 60 when their camera market was swept under their feet by the Japanese.
@jydurocher – The one thing I did get from the December 6-K is Sony reaffirming their future direction of their R&D and product development – Medical Imaging and continued 4K innovation. Sure it’s already known to us, but its important because they’ve put even more effort to manage their R&D at an enterprise level this past year. That is, they value R&D projects when those projects support multiple product lines. In other words, they continue to minimize the variation between product lines.
So, I’m glad they decided on Imaging as a one of their general themes. Also, I noted they brought a patent suit against Red for infringement. That means, to me, they are indeed serious about their imaging investment.
Now, if we can just get the Sony Broadcast/Cinema Product Managers to manage the Alpha and NEX lines, then we’d be completely set.
And it also explicitly states that is mainly due to a drop in compact and camcorder sales, despite a significant increase in system camera sales. The latter referring directly to A and E mount cameras.