Sony nearly quadrupled profits in Q2

Sony's fiscal first quarter profit nearly quadrupled from a year earlier, boosted by its lucrative image sensor and other businesses and highlighting a gradual recovery at the Japanese electronics and entertainment company.

Sony Corp. reported yesterday an 80.9 billion yen ($735 million) April-June profit, up dramatically from 21.2 billion yen the same period a year ago. Quarterly sales gained 15 percent to 1.86 trillion yen ($16.9 billion). Sony, whose sprawling business spans finance, movies, video games and consumer electronics, is seeing better results at its various units, including games, imaging products, semiconductors and home-entertainment systems.

Sony, which makes the Spider-Man series movies and the PlayStation 4 game console, stuck to its annual forecast for a 255 billion yen ($2.3 billion) profit, up dramatically from 73 billion yen posted the previous fiscal year. Also helping Sony's bottom line was the absence of the damage it suffered from the April 2016 earthquake in southwestern Japan that shut down its semiconductor plant, and gains from insurance recoveries related to that quake, it said.