Sony Drops After Disappointing PlayStation Sales and Outlook

(Bloomberg) -- Sony Group Corp. fell as much as 8.6% in Tokyo on Thursday after cutting its PlayStation 5 sales forecast and announcing weaker-than-expected results from its gaming division over the holiday period.

The company slashed its fiscal-year outlook by more than 3 million units to 11.5 million PS5 sales and also warned that supply and logistics challenges will persist through 2022. The strong performance of its movie division, led by the latest Spider-Man film, and its image-sensor business driven by Apple Inc.'s bumper iPhone sales helped offset some of the harm, but investors were wary about the long-term prospects of the key gaming group.

“It is going to be very tough for Sony to better these earnings numbers next term even if there were no structural changes occurring in the industry, especially if we fully come out of lockdowns globally,” Amir Anvarzadeh of Asymmetric Advisors said after Sony released its results on Wednesday. “With its far more extensive streaming/subscription service likely to be launched by next quarter, we see divisional profitability coming under much pressure going forward.”

Microsoft Corp.'s plan to acquire Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. for $69 billion sparked a selloff that took $20 billion off Sony's market value in a single day in January. Sony responded this week with its own acquisition announcement, a $3.6 billion deal for Bungie Inc., which Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said Wednesday was intended to help the company reach more users on platforms outside its PlayStation hardware ecosystem.