Sony Group announced its 2021 financial report on May 10. Overall revenue increased by 10% to 9,921.5 billion yen, and net profit increased by 14% to 882.2 billion yen, mainly from film, electronic products and solutions, and music business revenue. A substantial increase and the contribution of the yen exchange differential.
In the games and Internet segment, which is dominated by PlayStation, revenue increased 3% to 2,739.8 billion yen, mainly due to the yen exchange difference (+124.5 billion yen) and increased console sales. Operating profit increased by 4.4 billion yen to 346.1 billion yen, mainly due to the decrease in the yen exchange difference (+15.7 billion yen) and the loss of PS5 consoles selling below cost. Overall sales of third-party games and add-ons, however, declined.
Game software and additional content revenue fell 3,019.5 million yen to 1,424.4 billion yen. Network services revenue increased by 2,640.5 million yen to 409,335.5 million yen, and hardware and other revenue increased by 7,343.3 million yen to 840,542 million yen.
The annual sales of PS5 consoles increased significantly by 47% to 11.5 million units, and the cumulative sales exceeded 19.3 million units. However, it did not achieve the sales target of 14.8 million units expected last year (that is, the performance of the PS4 console in the same year as the launch), mainly due to the global shortage of semiconductor components and the logistics chaos caused by the epidemic. The annual sales of PS4 consoles dropped by 82% to 1 million, and the cumulative sales exceeded 117 million.
PlayStation 5
Annual sales of PS5/PS4 game software decreased by 11% to 303.2 million units (43.9 million units from the company). The digital download sales ratio was 66%, a decrease of 5 percentage points from the previous year. PlayStation Network had 106 million active users in the fourth quarter, down 3 million from the same period a year earlier. Among them, the number of paid PlayStation Plus members was 47.4 million, a slight decrease of 200,000 compared with the same period of the previous year.
Looking ahead to the 2022 part, the revenue target of the game and Internet business in 2022 will increase by 34% to 3.66 trillion yen. At present, the components required for the production of PS5 consoles are being purchased according to the plan, and the annual sales target is 18 million units. In addition, it will strengthen its own game software production capabilities by acquiring external studios such as Bungie and Haven and increasing the software development costs of existing studios (+40 billion yen).
