THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 31, 2019 at 12:40 JST
People walk in front of the headquarters of Sony Corp. in Tokyo on July 9. (AP Photo)
Sony Corp. reported Tuesday a 33 percent drop in its fiscal first quarter profit as sales dipped in its electronics operations, including TV sets and camcorders.
The electronics and entertainment company's April-June profit totaled 152 billion yen ($1.4 billion), down from 226 billion yen in the same period of the previous year.
Quarterly sales inched down 1 percent to 1.93 trillion yen.
Tokyo-based Sony, which makes Bravia digital TVs and the Aibo robotic dog, kept its profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2020 unchanged at 500 billion yen.
For the latest quarter, sales from the company's movie division Sony Pictures Entertainment benefited from the higher theatrical revenue from "Men in Black: International" and "Spider-Man: Far From Home."
Its video game business benefited from better sales in its PlayStation 4 game console, it said.
Sony's music unit also improved from the previous year because of the absence of equity losses for EMI Music Publishing recorded the previous year and higher sales, including streaming revenue.
Gains from Spotify have lifted Sony's bottom line in recent months.
Sony, founded in 1946, was long seen as a pioneer, exemplified in the Walkman, which introduced the idea of mobile music to the world.
But until its latest recovery, it has struggled over some years in adjusting to the digital age amid competition from powerful rivals like Apple and Samsung. It has also suffered some bad luck such as an earthquake in southwestern Japan in 2017.
Juggling its widespread operations, which also include medical equipment and financial services, has also been a challenge.
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