By Yuri Kageyama, Business Writer
TOKYO (AP) --Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony's profit rose 13% in October-December on growing sales of music, image sensors and video games, the company said Wednesday.
Tokyo-based Sony Corp.'s quarterly profit totaled 363.9 billion yen, or $2.4 billion, up from 321.5 billion yen the year before.
Quarterly sales for the maker of the PlayStation game machines and Bravia TV sets rose 22% to 3.7 trillion yen ($24.7 billion).
Sales were robust across its diverse business lines, which include financial services, games and networking operations and entertainment businesses including music and movies. An increase in sales of image sensors for mobile products also helped boost the company's bottom line.
Like other Japanese companies, Sony has benefited from recent exchange rate trends. The yen has weakened against the dollar, boosting the value of overseas earnings when they are converted into yen. The U.S. dollar has been trading near 150 yen lately.
Sales of recorded and published music, merchandise and licensing revenue rose, Sony said.
In Sony's pictures operations, TV and digital streaming licensing revenue and home entertainment sales climbed during the fiscal year following successful movie releases.
Hits included "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," an animation film about the superhero, and "The Equalizer," starring Denzel Washington.
Sony said subscriber growth in its animation service Crunchyroll also helped profits.
Sony raised its annual profit forecast to 920 billion yen ($6.1 billion), up from an earlier projection for an 880 billion yen ($5.9 billion) profit. The latest forecast is still below the 1 trillion yen it earned in the previous fiscal year.
Ubisoft shares jump following reports of Tencent, Guillemot family considering buyout
Shares of Ubisoft jumped more than 30% Friday, following reports that Tencent and the Guillemot family are considering a buyout of the video game maker.
Bloomberg news reported that Tencent and Guillemot family — minority stakeholders in Ubisoft — have been discussing ways to stabilize the company after it lost more than half its market value this year. Shares surged 33.5% to about $15.57 Friday, according to FactSet.
Ubisoft declined to comment. Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
France-based Ubisoft is the publisher behind the well-known franchise "Assassin's Creed." Ubisoft's shares fell last month to their lowest point in more than a decade after its latest title "Star Wars Outlaws" underperformed and the company announced that it would delay the latest "Assassin's Creed" game.
Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft's CEO, said in a statement last week that the company's "second quarter performance fell short of our expectations."
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