Sony third-quarter profit falls 20%; still beats estimates and raises outlook

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp on Tuesday reported a 20% decline in third-quarterly profit due to the absence of an accounting gain that boosted its year-earlier result, though strong sales of image sensors helped it beat estimates and raise its annual outlook.

Operating profit came in at 300.1 billion yen ($2.76 billion) for October-December, from 376.99 billion yen in the same period a year earlier. The result compared with the 271.07 billion yen average of nine analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.

Excluding the impact of one-off items including last year’s gain linked to the acquisition of music publisher EMI, profit rose 6%.

The Japanese entertainment and electronics firm raised its annual profit forecast to 880 billion yen from 840 billion yen. That compared with the 878.47 billion yen consensus of 22 analysts.

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