Sony Pictures Entertainment saw its fiscal third-quarter profit hit $281 million, up from $179 million in the year-ago period and $204 million in the previous quarter. Revenue for the film and television unit reached $2.47 billion in the latest period, up from $2.35 billion in the year-ago quarter and down from $2.77 billion in the fiscal second quarter.
SPE comprises mainly motion pictures, television productions and media networks, and of those three segments only media networks saw revenues grow in Q3 2023 as the dual Hollywood strikes impacted film and television productions.
In the fiscal third quarter, the motion picture division saw revenue of $880 million, down from $895 million in the second quarter, but up from $799 million in the year-ago period. In the latest quarter, the film division released Affirm Films’ Journey to Bethlehem, which made $8 million, Tristar Pictures’ Thanksgiving which made $45 million in revenue, and the Columbia Pictures releases Napoleon ($208 million) and Anyone But You ($31 million for the 10 days counted within the third quarter).
Revenue for the motion picture division should see an uptick in fiscal year 2024, with SPE set to release 14 titles this year, including Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, another Bad Boys film, Kraven the Hunter and a Venom sequel, the company said.
Television productions saw revenue of $883 million, down from the $1.2 billion made in the second quarter, but up slightly from the $880 million recorded in the year-ago period. SPE’s hugely successful television operation includes current hits such as Netflix’s The Crown, Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, Disney+’s Goosebumps, Amazon Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time and Gen V as well as long-running hits such as Days of Our Lives, Jeopardy! and its various spinoffs and Shark Tank.
Third-quarter revenue at Sony’s Game & Network Services division, a separate entity to SPE and which encompasses PlayStation hardware and software sales as well as the PlayStation Network, hit $9.8 billion, up 18 percent year-over-year. The segment was driven by strong sales of the PlayStation 5 console and related games, as well as increased revenue from PlayStation Plus subscriptions. The video game division’s big release in the latest quarter was Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for PlayStation 5. Sony revealed that the title, as of Feb. 4, has sold 10 million units.
Sony’s music division also had a strong quarter, with revenue hitting $2.77 billion. Among the music division’s top-selling acts for the quarter were SZA (SOS), Travis Scott (UTOPIA), Rod Wave (Nostalgia) and Doja Cat (Scarlet).
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