Sony ship 14.3m units WW, NPS profits $430m

[Maximus]

Sony have released their annual financial statement with details of how many units they have shipped:



They have also forecast 15m units to ship in the current financial year, which points to a price cut in the latter part, towards September. My guess is $199/€199/£169. Sales I have seen for the months of April and May show PS3 to be down around 15% YoY, if that were to continue for until the end of March 2012 they would ship around 12m units which leaves a 3m shortfall, only a $100 price cut can make up such a large shortfall, $50 won't do it.

My guess is they will cut the price around the time Resistance 3 is released and give it a massive marketing push. As we have seen there is enough room in the unit to cut prices.

Anyway, forecasts for next year:



Sony as a company posted a loss of around $3.2bn but that was due to a $4.4bn charge related to their tax filings. Essentially they have prepaid a bunch of taxes, but now they have made three years worth of losses in a row they can no longer bank those as profit. It isn't really a loss if Sony can improve their business, but due to the earthquake there is some doubt over the short term profitability. Medium term Sony remains unaffected and should meet the 5% margin in 2013/14.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Maximus

They have also forecast 15m units to ship in the current financial year, which points to a price cut in the latter part, towards September. My guess is $199/€199/£169.

That's a pretty strong price cut. $200ish price point would put the PS3 in very good position for the holidays.

Sales I have seen for the months of April and May show PS3 to be down around 15% YoY, if that were to continue for until the end of March 2012 they would ship around 12m units which leaves a 3m shortfall, only a $100 price cut can make up such a large shortfall, $50 won't do it.

Are you sure about this prognostication, Max? Bear in mind the PSN hack was late April, and that probably constrained buying since new purchasers would have been more likely to return the product. Also some small margin of users may have gotten fed up with the situation and traded for another console, which would glut the used console market and (probably) indirectly result in lower new console sales in the short term.

Or did you already account for this behavior before projecting 12M?

My guess is they will cut the price around the time Resistance 3 is released and give it a massive marketing push. As we have seen there is enough room in the unit to cut prices.

It'd be nice to see a price cut; in North America especially, the PS3 definitely has its work cut out for it to play catch-up, particularly with the bump in sales that the Xbox 360 received from the marketing push on Kinect.

[ussrelativity]

We certainly need a much stronger U.S. dollar. It's better for everyone.

[MerrickG]

The PS3 needs to come down $100 to $199 to really make a dent in the 360 marketshare over the holiday.

The time is now for that price cut to happen.

As I have been saying over and over again. If MS drops the price of the 250GB 360 at E3 (which I suspect they will) then Sony will have no choice but to follow.

People can blab all they want about the value the PS3 provides at $299, but if people haven't bought it at $299 now, they wont buy it at $299 at xmas even if they start bundling games with it.

If Sony stubbornly decides to keep the PS3 at $299 and MS lowers the price they can look forward to finishing dead last in the console race this holiday and they will have no one to blame but themselves.

I think that the PSN crisis may have forced Sony's hand and they may go ahead and drop the price at E3 to generate some consumer goodwill.


We are now in the 6th year of this console generation and consumers have waited FAR too long for a $200 console that contains everything.

[phranctoast]

Interesting news between the difference between sell in (sold/shipped to retailer) vs sell through (sold to consumer) for the PS3 from Jan-Mar 2011.

PS3:
Sell in: 2.1M-----Number specified on fiscals
Sell Through: 2.48M

360:

Sell in: 2.7M-----Number specified on fiscals
Sell Through: 2.09M

Wii:
Sell in: 1.36M
Sell Through: 2.0M


The PS3 is the only console to sell more consoles to the public than they shipped last quarter.

Both Sony, MS, and Nintendo overstuffed the channels with consoles and the result was additional consoles to be sold to public.

[Ite]

So Sony sold more?

[Wingman1977]

I don't see the big fuss on units shipped.