Sony Mobiles has sold 9.6 million smartphones in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Its mobile and communication revenue rose 36 percent to $3.92 billion.
Q1 revenue of Sony’s Mobile Products & Communications business rose 36.2 percent to $3.92 billion (389 billion yen) from the same quarter last year.
ABI Research’s earlier estimated that Sony shipped 8.3 million smartphones in the April-June quarter with 3.88 percent market share.
The significant increase was primarily due to the favorable impact of foreign exchange rates, a significant increase in unit sales of smartphones and an increase in the average selling price of smartphones.
Sony Mobile launched a number of Sony Xperia smartphones during the quarter. Sony Xperia Z was priced at around Rs 40,000 in India, while the price of Xperia E was around Rs 11,000.
Sony Mobile & Communication’s operating income increased to $60 million (5.9 billion yen) compared to operating loss of 28.1 billion yen. This significant improvement was primarily due to the increase in sales of smartphones.
Sony’s total sales and operating revenue for the quarter improved 13 percent to $17.3 billion (1.71 trillion yen) from 1.51 trillion yen in the year ago quarter.
Growth drivers include changes in the value of the yen, higher sales for smartphones, and a higher average selling price.
Sony says its first-quarter net income reached 3.48 billion yen compared to net loss of 24.64 billion yen in the prior-year quarter.
Operating income increased 30.1 billion yen to $367 million (36.4 billion yen). The increase was due to a significant improvement in the Mobile Products & Communications segment reflecting strong smartphone sales.
For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, Sony expects net income to be 50 billion yen.
The company raised its fiscal year Sales and operating revenue guidance to 7.90 trillion yen from prior estimate of 7.50 trillion yen, mainly due to the positive impact of the depreciation of the yen, partially offset by downward revisions in annual unit sales forecasts of certain electronics products.