Sony Group Corp.’s shares plunged after the electronics and entertainment group’s outlook missed expectations and warned the smartphone market may not recover until next year.
Sony’s stock price dropped as much as 6.5% during Thursday morning trade in Tokyo, the biggest intraday fall in a year.
Sony is a key supplier of image sensors to Apple Inc. and other smartphone makers, but the Japanese company warned during its earnings call the previous day that it didn’t expect a smartphone market recovery until next year at the earliest. Sony had earlier said it expected a second-half bounce-back in global phone sales.
“Earnings collapsed in movies and semiconductors,” Citigroup Inc. analyst Kota Ezawa wrote in a note to investors.
The Japanese company also reported weaker-than-expected sales for its flagship PlayStation 5 during the April-June quarter, igniting concern the company will need to spend more on marketing to achieve its goal of selling 25 million units this fiscal year.
Sony has been beefing up its content offerings in recent years, though the biggest hits of the summer have come from its rivals — from Activision Blizzard Inc.’s Diablo IV to Warner Bros. Pictures’ Barbie, a film that Sony previously held the rights to.
--With assistance from Kurt Schussler.
