Sony revised its forecasted results for the last fiscal year, and its forecast for the current fiscal year in light of the Great East Japan Earthquake and PSN security intrusion, noting a drop in the originally estimated earnings.
Sony on Monday revised its forecasted results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, and its forecast for the current fiscal year in light of the Great East Japan Earthquake and PSN security intrusion, noting a drop in originally-estimated profits. The company said that it estimates the unauthorized PSN intrusion and subsequent taking down of the network will cost around ¥14 billion ($171.7 million) in total for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, while the impact from the earthquake will be in the region of a staggering ¥150 billion ($1.8 billion). Breaking down the costs due to the PSN outage, Sony said that the estimate includes the cost of the personal information theft protection for customers, the costs of the Welcome Back program, and customer support costs. Sony management said in a statement, "So far, we have not received any confirmed reports of customer identity theft issues, nor confirmed any misuse of credit cards from the cyber-attack. Those are key variables, and if that changes, the costs could change." The statement continued, "In addition, in connection with the data breach, class action lawsuits have been filed against Sony and certain of its subsidiaries and regulatory inquiries have begun; however, those are all at a preliminary stage, so we are not able to include the possible outcome of any of them in our results forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2012 at this moment." The earthquake also heavily impacted the last fiscal year, with ¥22 billion ($268 million) in lost sales and ¥17 billion ($207 million) in lost operating profit for the year ended March 2011. In total, the company said it expects to report a ¥260 billion ($3.2 billion) net loss for the year ended March 2011, compared to its previous 2011 forecast -- issued in February -- of a ¥70 billion ($858.5 million) profit. Sony, which will announce fiscal results on May 26, reported a ¥40.8 billion ($500.4 million) loss in the prior fiscal year. Revenues were also down to ¥7.18 trillion ($88.1 billion), compared to ¥7.21 trillion ($88.5 billion) in the last fiscal year, but in line with company forecasts. Although the earthquake has affected Sony's profits, the company said last month that it will not affect the launch of the NGP, its handheld follow-up to the PSP. The company plans to have the PlayStation Network fully restored by the end of the month, with Sony telling PSN developers that the Store is set to return tomorrow, barring any further complications.
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