Sony today reported double-digit percentage falls in its music, film and TV divisions in the last three months of 2010, despite a rise in digital music sales and the strong performance of box office hit The Social Network.
Sony Music said revenue fell 10% to $1.7bn in the three months to the end of December as the company continued to struggle with declining sales of CDs and albums.
The world's second largest music company reports in US dollars as well as yen, and said sales fell 14.5% year on year to ¥139.8bn.
Sony said that the decrease was primarily due to the "continued contraction of the physical music market", although the fall was "partially offset" by an increase in digital sales.
Operating income fell by more than 10% to $241m, a fall of 15.7% to ¥19.5bn. The company said that the fall had been partially offset by decreasing marketing spend in the quarter.
Overall, parent company Sony Corporation saw net profit fall 8.6% in the three months to 31 December to ¥893bn.
Film studio Sony Pictures reported a 26.7% fall in sales to ¥149bn, a 20% decrease in US dollars to $1.8bn, with operating income collapsing by 66.7% to ¥4.7bn or $58m.
Sony said that while The Social Network, the film charting the rise of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook, performed strongly, revenues declined "significantly" because in the same period last year disaster film 2012 and Michael Jackson's This Is It performed so strongly. The company said television revenues had increased due to higher advertising and subscription revenues from international operations.
Operating income plummeted due to a loss on the "lower than estimated" performance of the Reece Witherspoon romcom How Do You Know, as well as lower home entertainment revenues and higher marketing expenses.
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