Today Sony Corporation posted its financial results for the second quarter and first half of fiscal year 2016, ended on September 30th. As you can see in the table below, all the values for profit are in the black, even if they show a significant drop year-on-year.

You can also find the table for the first half of the fiscal year, and breakdowns by segment at the bottom of the post.

The accompanying press release included a summary of the company's performance during the quarter, including a detailed explanation for the drop in income figures.

"Sales and operating revenue (“Sales”) decreased by 10.8% compared to the same quarter of the previous fiscal year (“year-on-year”) to 1,688.9 billion yen (16,722 million U.S. dollars). This decrease was mainly due to the impact of foreign exchange rates. On a constant currency basis, sales were essentially flat year-on-year, due to a decrease in Mobile Communications (“MC”) segment sales reflecting a significant decrease in smartphone unit sales, substantially offset by an increase in revenues in the Financial Services segment due to an improvement in investment performance in the separate account at Sony Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (“Sony Life”), as well as an increase in sales in the Pictures segment.

Operating income decreased 42.3 billion yen year-on-year to 45.7 billion yen (453 million U.S. dollars). This significant decrease was mainly due to the deterioration of operating results in the Semiconductors and Components segments, partially offset by improvements in the Pictures and MC segments. Operating income in the current quarter includes a 32.8 billion yen (325 million U.S. dollars) impairment charge related to the planned transfer of the battery business recorded in the Components segment.

In addition, 1.2 billion yen (11 million U.S. dollars) of net charges from the earthquakes in the Kumamoto region in 2016 (the “2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes”) were recorded in the Semiconductors segment. The charges from the earthquakes include 7.2 billion yen (71 million U.S. dollars) of repair costs for certain fixed assets and a loss on disposal of inventories that were directly damaged (the “Physical Damage”), as well as 1.2 billion yen (11 million U.S. dollars) of idle facility costs at manufacturing sites and other costs.

The entire amount of the Physical Damage was offset by the recognition of probable insurance recoveries. During the current quarter, restructuring charges, net, increased 27.0 billion yen year-on-year to 32.6 billion yen (322 million U.S. dollars) primarily due to the above-mentioned impairment charge related to the planned transfer of the battery business. This amount is recorded as an operating expense included in the above-mentioned operating income."

We also get an update on PS4 shipments: the console shipped 3.9 million units between July 1st and September 30th, bringing the total of shipments to 47.4 million units. Shipments remained flat compared to the previous quarter, and dropped by 100,000 units year-on-year.

Below you can read a breakdown of results of the Game & Network services segment, which includes the PlayStation and PlayStation Network businesses. Notably, operating revenue and imcome decreased due to the PS4ìs price drop, partially offset by higher software sales and reduction of production costs.

"Sales decreased 11.3% year-on-year (a 2% increase on a constant currency basis) to 319.9 billion yen (3,167 million U.S. dollars). This significant decrease was primarily due to the impact of foreign exchange rates and the impact of a price reduction for PlayStation 4 (“PS4”) hardware, partially offset by an increase in PS4 software sales including sales through the network.

Operating income decreased 4.9 billion yen year-on-year to 19.0 billion yen (188 million U.S. dollars). This decrease was primarily due to the effects of the price reduction for PS4 hardware as well as a decrease in PlayStation 3 software sales, partially offset by PS4 hardware cost reductions and the above-mentioned increase in PS4 software sales. During the current quarter, there was a 0.9 billion yen negative impact from foreign exchange rate fluctuations."

We also get a breakdown of sales to customers, split between hardware, network and other, with network sales still representing the majority of the gaming business' revenue.

Last, but not least, we get the outlook for the current fiscal year, which has been revised downward for the whole company since July's forecast. The house of PlayStation still predicts to sell 20 million PS4 units during the full fiscal year, bringing the grand total to 60 million.

The forecast for revenue and income for the gaming business also remains unchained, with a note mentioning the increase in sales for the network segment offset by the delay of a few games.

"The forecast for sales remains unchanged from the July forecast. The forecast for operating income remains unchanged from the July forecast mainly due to an increase in network sales, partially offset by the impact of a change in launch dates of certain software titles."