Sony Reports Quarterly Results

Sony reports its quarterly results for the quarter ended on Dec. 31, 2019. The company says:

• FY19 Q3 sales increased 29% year-on-year to 298.0 billion yen primarily due to an improvement in product mix and an increase in unit sales of image sensors for mobile devices.
• Operating income increased 28.7 billion yen year-on-year to 75.2 billion yen primarily due to the impact of the increase in sales, partially offset by an increase in research and development costs and depreciation expense.
• We revised upward our FY19 sales forecast 50 billion yen to 1 trillion 90 billion yen and our operating income forecast 30 billion yen to 230 billion yen.
• Demand for our image sensors in Q4 continues to be strong.
• Although production capacity is expanding according to plan and we continue to operate at full production capacity utilization, sales are increasing due to strong nearterm demand, and that is preventing us from stockpiling strategic inventory as originally planned.
• In addition, partly due to the introduction of a highly competitive new product this fiscal year, we have been able to maintain our overall margin, all of which has enabled us to operate this business extremely well.
• There is no change to our view that demand will continue to increase over the mid- to long-term from next fiscal year, but, in regards to next fiscal year in particular, we cannot be too optimistic due to the impact of the spread of infection from the new coronavirus that I mentioned earlier, the competitive environment and various geopolitical risks.
• We will continue to closely monitor demand trends and the external environment as we manage this business going forward.
• ToF sensors, which we expect will be the next growth driver after image sensors, have begun to sell well, although their size within the overall business is still small.
• We expect their adoption, primarily in mobile devices, to increase further from next fiscal year.
• Taking a longer-term view, as we made a point of showcasing at CES last month, we are taking steps to expand the adoption of Sony’s imaging and sensing technology in the mobility space and in the diverse industrial and factory automation space.
• We plan to proactively invest even more in technology development to grow this business in the future, such as the hiring of personnel including algorithm and software engineers, and the building of an office in Osaka to serve as a design and development center for image sensors.