Sony’s Loss Widens

TOKYO: Sony Corporation posted a quarterly loss of 24.6 billion yen ($312 million) compared with the year-ago loss of 15.5 billion yen ($200 million).

Operating profit fell 77 percent, to 6.28 billion yen ($80.3 million). Quarterly revenue, however, was up 1.4 percent to 1.52 trillion yen ($19.2 billion). Sales were helped by cameras, professional broadcasting products and mobile phones, though the company was hurt by a strong yen and low sales for liquid-crystal display TVs and video-game machines.

The movie division had a sales increase of 7 percent to 153.4 billion yen ($1.94 billion), benefiting from the theatrical performance of Men in Black 3. The segment posted an operating loss of 4.9 billion yen ($62 million), down from the same quarter in 2011 due mainly to higher marketing expenses for such films as The Amazing Spider-Man.