Sony's first quarter net profit of 35 million U.S. dollars Year-on-year

      Sony is preparing to release PS4 video games this year to drive growth in the gaming business and strive to regain market share that has been eroded by Samsung Electronics and Apple.      Sony, which is considering the spin-off of its entertainment division by Daniel Le Boux, a radical investor, Daniel Loeb, released its first-quarter earnings this fiscal year in Thursday, according to foreign media reports. Sony's first-quarter earnings have outpaced market expectations, with many factors driven by spending cuts, the introduction of new smartphones and weak yen movements.      In the first quarter ended June 30, Sony net profit was 3.48 billion yen (about 35 million US dollars), better than the net loss of 24.6 billion yen in the same period last year. Sony's first-quarter results exceeded market expectations. Analysts on average forecast Sony's net profit for the first quarter to be 2.6 billion yen, according to Bloomberg statistics.      Sony raised its revenue forecast for the fiscal year by 5.3% in Thursday. Kato Masaru Kato, Sony's chief financial officer, said the rise in revenue forecasts for the fiscal year was mainly driven by the decline in the yen. Led by chief executive Hirai Kazuo Hirai, Sony is preparing to release PS4 video-game consoles this year to drive growth in the gaming business and try to regain market share that has been eroded by Samsung Electronics and Apple. Yasuo Nakane, an analyst at Deutsche Bank in Tokyo, said: "For Sony, the current situation is very difficult, thinking that the company's products will have a mutual impact on demand-such as cameras, cameras, smartphones, gaming consoles and televisions." Sony's operations are improving, but consumers are moving more quickly to mobile products. "     Sony shares rose 1.7% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Thursday and closed at 2104 yen. Sony's share price has risen more than 100% per cent this year, stronger than the 35% per cent increase in the East card index.      Operating profit      Sony said its operating profit for the first quarter was 36.4 billion yen. Loeb's hedge fund, Third Point, said in May that it wanted Sony to sell 20% of its entertainment sector assets through its initial public offering to improve operations management and raise funds to revive the consumer electronics business. Third Point currently holds about 6.9% of Sony's shares.      "Japan's economic news" reported that at the Sony board meeting in Wednesday, some Sony directors explicitly objected to third point demand that Sony split production and sendThe business of movies, TV dramas and records. The Sony board will soon issue a formal rejection statement.      In the past nine years, Sony TV business cumulative loss has reached 762 billion yen. Sony has been overtaken by TCL and Sharp in the first quarter of this year as the world's fifth-largest TV maker, according to DisplaySearch, a market research firm, reported in June. Last year, Sony was the world's third-largest TV maker. Sony unveiled a 55-inch 4K television set this April, priced at $5000, after it launched a 84-inch 4K TV set selling $25,000 to the market last November. To cut spending, Sony is cutting back on television. The second quarter of this year, Sony was not among the world's top five experts, according to IDC, a      market research firm. Samsung Electronics, which accounted for 30% of the global smartphone market, grew 10% per cent in the previous quarter. After Samsung Electronics, Apple, LG Electronics, Lenovo Group and ZTE. Sony accounted for a 3.8% share of the global smartphone market in the first quarter, slightly above 3.6% in the previous year, according to Bloomberg statistics.      In addition to the TV business in trouble, Sony's camera department is also under great pressure, because more and more consumers began to use smartphones to take photos. Last week, Canon, the world's largest camera maker, lowered its net profit and revenue forecasts for the fiscal year and expected global camera shipments to drop to a ten-year low.