PlayStation reports 37% operating profit growth in Q3, record MAU and 75 million PS5 units sold

Sony has released a financial report for the third quarter ended December 31, 2024. The company’s gaming division saw strong growth in both revenue and operating profit.

Financial highlights

According to its latest earnings release, Sony’s Game & Network Services (G&NS) division reached ¥1.68 trillion ($10.9 billion) in revenue in the third quarter, up 16.5% compared to the same period last year.
The growth was mainly driven by an increase in sales of hardware and third-party games, including DLC and in-app purchases.
Video game sales amounted to ¥784.1 billion ($590 million), up 6.9% year-over-year. Hardware revenue increased 23.3% to ¥584.8 billion ($379.6 million), while network services rose 28.9% to ¥176.9 billion ($114.8 million).
The segment’s operating profit grew 37.2% year-over-year to ¥118.1 trillion ($766.5 million). The growth was driven by network services, sales of third-party titles, and decreased losses from hardware. These factors offset a decrease in sales of first-party games.

However, PlayStation’s operating profit margin was just 7%, slightly up from 6% in the same period last year. This is something industry analysts pointed out back in February 2024, calling these single-digit numbers “extremely disappointing” and “not acceptable.”
Due to strong results overall, Sony revised its forecast for the full year ending March 31, 2025. It now expects the G&NS segment to generate ¥4.61 trillion ($29.9 billion) in revenue, up 2.6% from the November outlook, and ¥380 billion ($2.46 billion) in operating income, up 7%.

PlayStation’s game and hardware sales

In Q3, Sony sold 9.5 million PlayStation 5 units, up 15.8% year-over-year. This brings the console’s lifetime sales to 75 million units globally.
PS5 currently lags slightly behind PlayStation 4, which sold 76.5 million units during the same period of its life cycle.
Full-game sales amounted to 95.9 million copies, up 7% compared to the same period last year. Sales of first-party titles fell 28% to 11.6 million units, accounting for 12% of the total.
As of June 30, PlayStation Network had 129 million monthly active users (MAU), up 5% year-over-year. This is also a significant increase from 116 million in the previous quarter and a record high overall.

During an earnings call, Sony noted that 42% of PS5 purchasers in the third quarter were new users (those who created a new PS Network account at the time of connecting a console).
Sony Group president Hiroki Totoki told investors that PlayStation plans to build a “broad title portfolio,” highlighting the success of award-winning games like Astro Bot and Helldivers 2.
Arrowhead’s co-op shooter continues to perform well: the game’s daily active users (DAU) more than doubled following the launch of the Omens of Tyranny update in December.