The Spider Man effect on Sony's revenue prospects

Sony raised its fiscal year forecasts after strong third-quarter revenues. Spider Man movie revenues and image sensor sales for iPhones stand out as the main reasons for the increase.

Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony posted an operational profit of 465.2 billion yen ($4 billion), significantly surpassing analysts' average estimates of 342.1 billion yen ($3 billion).

Strong data prompted Sony to increase its year-end operating profit forecast from 1.04 trillion yen ($9.1 billion) to 1.2 trillion yen ($10.5 billion).

Among the negative news for the company, the most important was that the technology giant reduced its sales figure expectations for the flagship PlayStation 5 due to the chip crisis.

In October, the company revised its sales figure for the full year from 14.8 million to 11.5 million, reducing its gaming business revenues from 2.9 trillion yen to 2.73 trillion yen.

The chip crisis is causing investors to worry

The movie "Spider Man: No Way Home", which was released in December and is the highest-grossing movie of 2021, continues its remarkable box office performance in the new year, despite the Omicron variant.

In the statement made by Sony last week, it was announced that the superhero movie was the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time, reaching a global figure of $1.7 billion. Another movie that made a serious contribution to the entertainment department was Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The film was able to be one of the drivers of the strong performance in the third quarter, with global revenue of $500 million.

Another business line that contributed significantly to Sony's revenues, which sells image sensors for phones to Apple, was the sensor department. The Cupertino-based company, which achieved record quarterly results this year, owes some of its success to these hardware sales.

Still, investors remain concerned about Sony's PlayStation division. The company's reduced production estimates due to the chip crisis and Microsoft's announcement of its plan to buy game giant Activision Blizzard for $69 billion led to a wave of sales in Sony stocks in January, which lost $20 billion in value.