On the other hand, revenue from Sony's Playstation & Networking Services (G & NS) business increased by 16.2% to 718 billion yen in the last quarter and its operating profit soared 70.8% to 85.4 billion yen.
Revenue grew 21.6% YoY to 429.8 billion yen for the home entertainment & sound business (HE & S business; products including LCD TVs, players, home stereo and MP3 players).
Revenue increased 8.4% to JPY181.1bn while YPSF increased 23.2% YoY to JPY26.0bn. Digital Imaging & Solutions (IP & S; Imaging Products & Solution; products including digital camera and video camcorder)
Revenue from the mobile device business (MC business; mainly smartphones) dropped 12.5% to 217.7 billion yen, while revenue declined 25.4% to 15.8 billion yen.
Sales of semiconductor devices (including CMOS image sensors, camera modules, etc.) increased 7.3% YoY to 250.9 billion yen due to a surge in sales of mobile devices. Sales of YoY surge jumped 122.8% to 60.6 billion yen .
In the semiconductor business, sales of image sensors surged 16% to JPY200.3 billion.
Sony pointed out that due to the semiconductor business, HE & S's profit is expected to be better than expected, so 2017 (April 2017 -2018 March) consolidated profit target from the original estimate of 630 billion yen revised to 720 billion yen Surpassing the level of record high of 525.7 billion yen in 1997) and the consolidated net profit target of 480 billion yen to 480 billion yen (exceeding the record high of 369.4 billion yen in 2007) Machine, the cause of the MC business and semiconductor sales were less than expected, so maintain the original 8.5 trillion yen unchanged.
Analysts on average estimate Sony's annual profit for 2017 at a net profit of 680.9 billion yen and 393.1 billion yen, and Sony posted better-than-expected estimates.
Sony said its 2017 sales target for image sensors will be revised down to 680.0 billion yen (up 18.5% from 680 billion yen) from the previous estimate of 680 billion yen due to less sales of image sensors for mobile devices.
Sony, the supplier of CMOS image sensors for the Apple iPhone, recently reported that the iPhone X will see a big cut in production this quarter, cutting output by half.
Sony also announced the sales volume of major products in the previous quarter (Dec.-Dec 2017): sales of smartphones dropped 22% to 4m from the same period of 2017, the second consecutive quarter of decline; PS4 sales fell 7% To 9 million units; digital camera sales dropped 13% to 1.4 million units; LCD TV sales rose 2% to 4.2 million units.
Sony revised its smartphone sales target for 2017 to 15 million units from its original estimate of 15.5 million units to 4% year-on-year, setting the second-highest sales target for smartphones for the second quarter of this year. Digital cameras from 4.2 million units Up to 4.4 million units, an increase of 5%. PS4 and LCD TVs remained unchanged at 19 million units (previous year: 20 million units) and 12.5 million units (12.1 million units in the previous year).