Sony’s results for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, released February 5, 2026, show a split picture: consolidated sales from continuing operations edged up 0.5% year over year, while operating income rose 21.8%. PS5 hardware shipments fell to 8.0 million from 9.5 million, a decline of about 16%. The often-cited 4.1% decline refers instead to sales in Sony’s broader Game & Network Services segment—not to PS5 unit sales. Sony has since reported newer quarterly results; this article explains the December 2025 quarter in its original context.
What Sony reported for the quarter
Sony Group’s FY2025 third quarter covered October through December 2025. In its February 5, 2026 financial summary, Sony reported the following year-over-year changes for continuing operations:
| Measure | October–December 2025 | October–December 2024 | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consolidated sales | ¥3,713.681 billion | ¥3,693.394 billion | Up about 0.5% |
| Operating income | ¥515.041 billion | ¥422.969 billion | Up about 21.8% |
| Net income attributable to Sony Group stockholders from continuing operations | ¥377.324 billion | ¥341.080 billion | Up about 10.6% |
The phrase “earnings rose slightly” depends on which measure is meant. Sales increased only modestly, but operating income and continuing-operations net income grew more substantially. These figures are not interchangeable: sales measure revenue, operating income measures profit from operations, and attributable net income is the amount assigned to Sony Group stockholders under the stated accounting scope. Sony’s third-quarter consolidated financial summary reports continuing operations separately from discontinued operations.
PS5 hardware shipments fell more than the 4.1% headline suggests
Sony reported 8.0 million PS5 hardware unit sales in FY2025 Q3, compared with 9.5 million in FY2024 Q3. That is a decrease of 1.5 million units, or approximately 15.8%—usually rounded to 16%. Sony’s reported unit figures are shipments into the sales channel, also called sell-in; they are not a direct count of consoles purchased by consumers.
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The 4.1% figure belongs to Game & Network Services (G&NS) segment sales. That segment generated ¥1,613.587 billion in FY2025 Q3, down from ¥1,682.330 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. G&NS includes hardware, game software, network services and other items, so its revenue change cannot be read as the percentage change in PS5 hardware units.
| Metric | FY2025 Q3 | FY2024 Q3 | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| PS5 hardware shipments | 8.0 million units | 9.5 million units | Down about 15.8% |
| G&NS segment sales | ¥1,613.587 billion | ¥1,682.330 billion | Down about 4.1% |
Sony’s FY2025 Q3 supplemental information provides both segment sales and hardware shipment totals. The segment figure should not be compared as if it were Sony Group’s consolidated revenue: it covers a narrower business scope.
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Why could Sony’s profits rise while PS5 shipments declined?
Console shipments are only one part of PlayStation’s business, and hardware unit totals do not move in lockstep with the revenue or profitability of the wider segment. Sony reported that PlayStation Store software revenue reached a quarterly record and that PlayStation Plus significantly contributed to the quarter’s results. In its earnings presentation, management said, “PlayStation®Plus significantly contributed to the results of the quarter as the shift to higher tiers of the service continued.”
Engagement measures were also relatively steady or higher year over year: PlayStation had 132 million monthly active users at the December 2025 quarter-end, 2% above the prior-year December figure, and total playtime increased 0.4% in the quarter. These measures help show why a fall in hardware shipments does not by itself establish that the existing PlayStation audience or its activity contracted. They do not, on their own, quantify how much software or subscriptions contributed to Sony’s consolidated profit growth.
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Sony management attributed the hardware decline in part to market conditions. Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s Representative Corporate Executive Officer, said: “Although conditions in the console hardware market during the year-end selling season were more challenging than expected, we were able to steadily expand our PlayStation 5 (PS5) installed base in line with our original plan and exceeded 92 million units on a cumulative sell-in basis.” That is management’s account of the quarter, not an independently established causal analysis. The FY2025 Q3 earnings transcript contains these comments.
Keep the accounting scope in view
Sony’s financial-services business was spun off in October 2025, and Sony’s reporting distinguishes continuing operations from discontinued operations. For the December 2025 quarter, the continuing-operations attributable net income was ¥377.324 billion. Sony separately reported a consolidated attributable net loss of ¥1,008.612 billion, reflecting a large accounting loss associated with discontinued operations and the spin-off. That consolidated loss is a different accounting measure from operating income and should not be described as evidence that Sony’s continuing operations generated an operating loss.
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These figures are not Sony’s latest results
As of October 8, 2026, Sony had reported its FY2026 first-quarter results for April–June 2026. Consolidated sales were ¥2,837.771 billion, up 8.2% year over year, and net income attributable to stockholders was ¥342.161 billion, up 32.1%, according to the first-quarter financial summary published July 31, 2026. Those later figures cover a different quarter and should not be combined with December 2025 metrics.
Sony Interactive Entertainment’s figures current through June 30, 2026, show more than 95 million PS5 hardware units sold in on a cumulative worldwide basis and 125 million PlayStation monthly active users. These are later, period-specific totals; they do not replace the 132 million monthly active users Sony reported for the December 2025 quarter-end. Sony labels the cumulative hardware total as sell-in on its Business Data & Sales page.
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