Giuseppe Nelva
2 million PS5 and 100,000 PS4 units were purchased by retailers worldwide during the latest quarter (between January and March), which means that the grand total for PS4 as of March 31 is at 117 million units shipped, while PS5 has shipped 19.3 million units in its lifetime. 11.5 Million PS5 units have been shipped during the past fiscal year (between April 2021 and March 2022), which is significantly lower compared to initial forecasts made in April 2021.
In the slides below, you can take a look at an overview of the performance of the Game & Network Services business (which includes both PlayStation and PlayStation Network), with all the relevant figures including software sales and more.
We learn that sales for the full fiscal year 2021 have increased 3% (83.5 billion yen) year-on-year due to the increase of sales of hardware partly offset by the decrease in software sales, mainly among third-party titles.
Operating income (profit) is essentially flat due to the fact that Sony is taking less of a loss per PS5 unit while selling the hardware compared to the previous year, partly offset by the decrease in sales of third-party games.
Looking at the forecast for the fiscal year 2022 (between April 2022 and March 2023), Sony expects a significant increase (34% or 929.2 billion yen) in sales due to better shipments of hardware and peripherals (likely meaning that they expect to be able to provide better supply) and higher sales of third-party games. Operating income is expected to drop by 41.1 billion yen due to the increase in development costs at existing studios and the recording of expenses for the recent acquisitions including Bungie, partly offset by predicted better sales of both first and third-party games.
Additional documentation about the gaming business’ performance reveals that the grand total of PlayStation Plus subscribers was at 47.4 million as of March 31. On the other hand, PlayStation Network had 106 million monthly active users.
Speaking of Sony as a whole, both sales and operating income show a significant improvement year-on-year.
If you’d like to compare, you can read our dedicated article about the previous financial results announced in February.
