Japan's Sony raises forecast on solid results in its game business

TOKYO — Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony reported a 3% gain in October-December profit Thursday, and raised its full-year forecast.

Quarterly profit totaled 373.7 billion yen ($2.4 billion), up from 364 billion yen.

Quarterly sales edged up 18% to 4.4 trillion yen ($29 billion), boosted by solid results in its financial services, games and music operations.

The Tokyo-based maker of the PlayStation video game machine reported a 21% gain in April-December profit at 943.9 billion yen ($6 billion), up from 781.6 billion.

Nine-month sales edged up 8% to 10.3 trillion yen ($67 billion).

Sony Corp. revised its full year profit projection upward to 1.08 trillion yen ($7 billion) from the 980 billion yen ($6.3 billion) annual profit forecast it gave in November.

The latest projection is also an 11% improvement over the profit it recorded the previous fiscal year.

The revision was caused by a favorable currency exchange rate, as well as growing sales in network services, according to Sony.

Its PlayStation 5 game machine is now in its fifth year since going on sale. Details on a possible successor have not been announced.