Sony’s Film Division Buoys Profit as Electronics Sales Slow

Electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp. said Thursday that flagging sales of consumer electronics and music hurt revenue, but popular films such as “Spider-Man 2” and “Hellboy” boosted profit.

Sales for the Tokyo company fell 5.3% to 1.7 trillion yen, or $15.6 billion, in its fiscal second quarter that ended Sept. 30 from the same quarter a year earlier. Net income, however, rose 62% to 53.2 billion yen, or $488 million.

Sales of consumer electronics, which contributed more than 70% to Sony’s revenue, slipped 2.5% to $11.1 billion, depressed by falling prices of high-definition and flat-screen television sets and weak performance of its portable digital-music players sold under the Walkman brand.

“Certainly, there’s a lot of finger-pointing within Sony as to why their portable music players aren’t doing well,” said Richard Doherty, analyst with Envisioneering Group in Seaford, N.Y.

Doherty also said a 2% monthly drop in digital TV prices caught Sony and other electronics companies by surprise. “That hurt Sony tremendously,” Doherty said.

The unit also took a restructuring charge of $141 million.

Sony shares fell 55 cents to $34.48 on Nasdaq after the earnings release from Tokyo before the opening of New York stock markets.

Also hurting Sony was a decline in Sony’s PlayStation game business, a unit that traditionally contributed a good chunk of the company’s profit. To clear store shelves for an upcoming remodeled version of its 4-year-old PlayStation 2 console, Sony curtailed shipments of the older version. As a result, sales for the division fell 26% in the quarter to $1.1 billion.

Rescuing the quarter was Sony’s film business, which posted a 2.3% uptick in revenue to $1.76 billion, driven in part by “Spider-Man 2,” which has earned $781 million at theaters since its July release.

In addition, Sony’s joint venture with Swedish phone manufacturer Ericsson Inc. added $55 million to Sony’s bottom line, up 50% from a year ago.

The company lowered its sales projections for its fiscal year ending March 31 to $70 billion, down 2% from last year. It had previously projected sales of $72 billion.

Meanwhile, Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp. -- the world’s largest consumer electronics company and maker of Panasonic and JVC branded products -- posted a 6.8% rise in fiscal second-quarter net income to $220 million on sales of $20.7 billion, up 18% from a year earlier, buoyed by brisk sales of flat-panel TVs, digital cameras and air conditioners.