Sony reports 5% drop in profits on Playstation 3 launch

Sony reports 5% drop in profits

Japanese consumer electronics maker Sony has posted a 5 percent drop in group net profit for the last three months of 2006. The company posted profits of 159.9 billion yen for the period.

The company launched their latest Playstation 3 gaming console in November last year and market analysts claimed that they are losing a lot of money on each unit sold in the market.

The console is already available in the US and Japanese markets. The company is on its way to launch it in Europe in March this year.

The launch saw an extreme shortage of the console units in the market due to limited supplies. Sony reportedly had problems with regular supplies of parts for the console.

Sony has however raised its earnings forecast for the fiscal year through March by 38 percent. They are hoping the bounce back from improved earnings from its core electronics division.