Sony Corp

Japanese technology and entertainment company Sony logged an 18% rise in profit for the fiscal year through March on healthy results at its music and video-game operations. Tokyo-based Sony Corp. said Wednesday that its annual profit totaled 1.14 trillion yen (USD 7.8 billion), up from 970.6 billion yen in the previous fiscal year. Annual sales were virtually unchanged, inching down to 12.957 trillion yen (USD 88 billion) from 13.020 trillion yen. One area that lagged among Sony's sprawling businesses was the financial segment, where revenue stalled. But its film division and its imaging and sensor solutions segment did well. Among the movies that fared positively at the box office for the fiscal year through March were Venom: The Last Dance, featuring the Marvel Comics superhero, and Bad Boys: Ride or Die, an action comedy, in which Will Smith and Martin Lawrence come back in their popular cop roles, the fourth installment in the series. Sony, which makes the PlayStation console

The outage, which began late Friday, left users unable to sign in, play online games or access its online store

Along with outgoing CEO Kenichiro Yoshida, Totoki helped steer the Tokyo-based technology conglomerate to focus on growing its entertainment offerings

Consumer electronics maker Sony India's profit edged up 22.18 per cent to Rs 167 crore while revenue from operations increased 20.6 per cent to Rs 7,663.74 crore, according to financial data accessed by the business intelligence platform Tofler. Sony India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's tech major Sony Corporation, logged a profit of Rs 136.67 crore in 2022-23 while its revenue from operations stood at Rs 6,353.74 crore. Its total expenses in 2023-24 were up 20.5 per cent to Rs 7,502.30 crore as against Rs 6,225.87 crore in the previous year. No comment was received from Sony India to an email seeking response on financial numbers till the filing of the story. Sony India's 'advertising promotional expenses' were up 37.6 per cent to Rs 179.02 crore in the financial year ended on March 31, 2024. Its royalty cost, paid to the Japanese parent company, was up 13.6 per cent to Rs 259.07 crore. Sony India's revenue from Consumer Audio and Visuals was up 15.7 per cent to Rs 6,300.

A sprawling group encompassing music, movies, games and chips, Sony hiked its full-year profit forecast by 3 per cent to 1.3 trillion yen aided by foreign exchange rates

The Japanese tech conglomerate plans a partial spin-off of its financial unit with a listing in October 2025 in order to focus on its entertainment and chips units

Many of today's Indian conglomerates also began life this way. In 1958, more than a decade after the departure of British rulers, the Tata Group had nine agencies managing 60 companies

While Sony's India head sought to rally the morale of his employees in a letter Wednesday, it was thin on details on how it plans to fend off rivals

"Let's turn our attention back to the heart of our work - our current projects, our fantastic team, and the audiences who count on us," Singh said,

With Zee-Sony merger being terminated, we believe Zee's price-to-earnings (PE) will slump back to 12x levels, seen prior to the Sony merger announcement, CLSA said

Sony Group Corp has called off its merger with Zee after nearly two years of negotiating the $10 billion deal, which was set to become India's fourth-largest media house

Sony cited conditions of the merger agreement not being met as the reason for the termination, according to the letter seen by Bloomberg.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) on Friday said it is continuing to work towards a successful closure of its USD 10 billion merger with Culver Max Entertainment, formerly known as Sony Pictures Networks India, amid reports that the Japanese entity's board meeting to take a call on the fate of the protracted deal. In a regulatory filing, ZEEL said it was "not aware of, and cannot comment on" any board meeting held or proposed to be held by Culver Max Entertainment, given that these are internal matters of Sony. "We wish to reiterate that the Company is committed to the merger with Sony and is continuing to work towards a successful closure of the proposed merger and is engaging in good faith negotiations with Sony with a view to discuss the extension of the date required to make the Scheme effective, by a reasonable period of time," it said. The fate of the USD 10 billion merger between ZEEL and Culver Max Entertainment is hanging by a slim thread with the two parties yet to

'Zee is committed to the merger with Sony,' said the company in a BSE filing on Tuesday

The grace period, as well as the talks on a further deadline extension, are keeping hopes alive for a two-year-old transaction that has already seen ample drama and delays

Sony's games business was its largest unit by sales and the second-biggest contributor to operating profit after music in the last financial year

Sony Group Corp and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd have entered into a discussion to extend the deadline for merging their India operations, keeping hopes alive of creating a $10 bn media behemoth

Independent directors Sasha Mirchandani and Vivek Mehra "failed to get the requisite majority of votes," the company said in an exchange filing

A failure to reach an agreement on leadership by December 21 may derail the merger, a news report said.

The NCLAT on Friday adjourned the hearing to October 31 on pleas filed by IDBI Bank and Axis Finance against the merger of Zee Entertainment Enterprise with Culver Max Entertainment, formerly Sony Pictures Networks India. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) did not issue notice over the petitions filed by the private lender and the non-banking financial company (NBFC). However, it said that Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd (ZEEL) may file a response to both petitions, if needed. Both have challenged the August 10, 2023, order of the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to approve the merger. Earlier, the NCLT on August 10, 2023, approved the proposed merger, which would create the largest media entity in the country. While approving the merger, the NCLT in its order, dismissed some applications moved by financial institutions opposing the move, including IDBI Trusteeship, IDBI Bank, Axis Finance, JC Flowers Asset Reconstruction Co and Imax ...