Sony reported a 29% drop in operating profit for its second quarter as the company suffered from weakness in its imaging sensor business. The Japanese electronics giant’s revenue for the September quarter came in at 2.8 trillion yen ($18.5 billion), representing an 8% increase year-over-year. However, operating profit fell to 263 billion Japanese yen, missing expectations of 304.4 billion yen.
The decline in profit was attributed to weaknesses in Sony’s imaging sensor business, as well as declines in profit at its financial services and entertainment, technology, and services businesses. The company’s chip division saw a significant 28% drop in profit in the fiscal second quarter. Sony supplies camera chips to consumer technology manufacturing giants like Apple, which uses its semiconductors in its iPhones.
Despite the drop in profit, Sony increased its sales forecast for the full year, now expecting total sales of 12.4 trillion yen, up from earlier forecasts of 12.2 trillion yen. This increase is attributed to positive foreign exchange rates, as the Japanese yen has weakened significantly versus the dollar, and Sony makes most of its income outside of the U.S.
This news follows a fiscal first quarter which saw Sony report a 33% rise in revenue year-over-year to 3 trillion Japanese yen, but a 31% drop in profit to 253 billion yen. The company at the time cited weaknesses in its financial services and pictures division, which saw a small slump due to strikes by the Writers Guild of America and other unions against the use of artificial intelligence to generate movie scripts.
This is a developing story, and updates will follow shortly.