Sega Sammy Sees Profits Plummet

Officials from Japanese publisher and arcade manufacturer Sega Sammy Holdings have announced the company’s first quarter financial results, which saw net profits dropping by nearly 93 percent, following a downturn in sales of Sammy’s pachinko slot machines. Net earnings for the company fell from ¥10.70 billion ($93.0m) last year to ¥779 million ($6.8m), as revenue fell 14.8 percent to ¥85.62 billion ($744.8m). Operating profit also fell by 84.1 percent to ¥2.80 billion ($24.4m). Sales for the company’s pachinko and other slot machines saw sales more than halve to ¥21.81 billion ($189.7m), attributed to a lack of new product launches during the period. Other areas of the company’s business, which use the Sega brand more prominently, fared better, with arcade game sales increasing from ¥12.71 billion ($110.5m) in the previous year to ¥17.98 billion ($156.4m) for a profit of ¥4.05 billion ($35.3m). Amusement centre operations revenues also increased from ¥21.02 billion ($182.8m) to ¥25.30 billion ($220.0m), with a profit of ¥2.01 billion ($17.5m). Sega’s consumer division saw sales increase from ¥11.60 billion ($100.9m) to ¥16.54 billion ($143.8m). Despite these positive results, and like most publishers during this period, the company still recorded a loss of ¥4.06 billion ($35.4m). Despite the overall poor results, the company has made no changes to its full year predictions, with an expected net profit rise of 13.3 percent to ¥75 billion ($653m) on a 23.3 percent increase in revenue of ¥682 billion ($5.9bn).