Technology giant and video game company Sony Group Corp SONY is among the companies that could be hit hard by tariffs on countries such as China and Japan.
The company has several ideas on how to offset tariffs from President Donald Trump.
What Happened: Sony reported fourth-quarter financials Wednesday with quarterly sales of $17.24 billion, down 24% year-over-year and coming in shy of a Street consensus estimate of $20.4 billion.
The company’s Game & Network Services segment saw sales down 4.2% year-over-year for the quarter. Sony said it sold 2.8 million PlayStation 5s in the quarter, down from 4.5 million in last year’s fourth quarter and down from 9.5 million sold in the third quarter, which included the Christmas shopping season.
Along with its financial results, Sony shared guidance for the next year, which included comments that the company could face a $680 million impact from tariffs.
Sony is one of several video game companies that has considered raising the price of consoles to help offset tariffs. The company said Wednesday it will also consider moving manufacturing to the U.S. to avoid costly tariffs.
Sony Chief Financial Officer Lin Tao said the company is considering “passing on” tariffs to consumers to protect profits, as reported by The Verge. While Tao didn’t name the PlayStation 5 specifically, this would confirm previous reports that the console could get more expensive for gamers in the U.S.
Along with potential price increases, Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki highlighted the potential to move PlayStation 5 production to the United States. Totoki said the console “can be produced locally,” and said this could be “an efficient strategy” to offset tariffs.
“Has to be considered going forward,” Totoki added.
Why It’s Important: The PlayStation 5 is one of the top-selling video game consoles of all time and has sold significantly more units than the Xbox Series X/S from Microsoft Corp MSFT during the current console cycle.
In the past 12 months, Sony has shipped 18.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles, bringing the lifetime total to 77.7 million, according to the report.
Sony manufactures the majority of PlayStation 5 hardware in China, which makes the tariffs on the country costly to the company’s gaming division.
While the tariff amount declined from over 100% to 30% in a 90-day pause, Sony has to carefully consider whether it eats this cost, passes it onto the consumer or considers making future changes like its manufacturing processes.
Sony may want to have control of the situation and any potential tariff struggles down the road with the PlayStation 6 consol, rumored to be released in 2027 or 2028 and to help kick off the next console cycle.
SONY Price Action: Sony stock is up 1.22% to $24.84 on Wednesday versus a 52-week trading range of $15.67 to $26.08. Sony stock is up 18% year-to-date in 2025 and up over 50% in the last year.
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