Currency rates hurt Sony’s recovery

Article Excerpt

SONY GROUP CORP. ADRs $88 is a hold. The Japanese conglomerate (New York symbol SONY; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; ADRs outstanding: 1.3 billion; Market cap: $114.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 0.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.sony.com) reported 1.3% lower sales in its fiscal 2023 third quarter, ended December 31, 2022, to $26.02 billion from $26.36 billion a year earlier. That’s entirely due to unfavourable exchange rates. Earnings per ADR also fell 17.4%, to $1.99 from $2.41 (each ADR represents one Sony common share). The company should benefit now that the easing of COVID-19 restrictions has improved the availability of chips and components for its popular PlayStation 5 video game console. Sony has sold more than 30 million PS5 consoles since it launched the product in November 2020. However, sales of other equipment, particularly image sensors for mobile devices, have weakened in the past few months. Sony is a hold. hold. …