Will Sony (SNE) Stock Get a Boost From Record-High PlayStation 4 Sales?

Sony (SNE) announced today that as of November 22, PlayStation 4 video game consoles topped 30.2 million units, making it the fastest-selling console compared to any of its predecessors.
By U-Jin Lee ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Sony Corp. (SNE) - Get Report announced today that as of November 22, PlayStation 4 video game consoles topped 30.2 million units, making it the fastest-selling console compared to any of its predecessors. 

It's been two years since the Japanese electronics manufacturer put its PlayStation 4 on the market and looking ahead, it expects to deliver over 17.5 million units during the current fiscal year ending March 2016.

"We are sincerely grateful that gamers across the globe have continued to choose PS4 as the best place to play since launch two years ago," said Andrew House, president and global CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Making this announcement ahead of Black Friday, the biggest shopping day immediately following Thanksgiving, may be to target consumers who are searching for a new video system, Fortune noted.

Shares of Sony are retreating by 1.71% to $26.50 on Wednesday morning. 

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates SONY CORP as a Buy with a ratings score of B-. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

We rate SONY CORP (SNE) a BUY. This is driven by a number of strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, good cash flow from operations, impressive record of earnings per share growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and solid stock price performance. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows low profit margins.

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

  • Despite its growing revenue, the company underperformed as compared with the industry average of 9.5%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 0.7%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.
  • Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 400.57% to $1,476.82 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, SONY CORP has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 166.40%.
  • SONY CORP reported significant earnings per share improvement in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past year. During the past fiscal year, SONY CORP continued to lose money by earning -$0.97 versus -$1.22 in the prior year.
  • Powered by its strong earnings growth of 119.13% and other important driving factors, this stock has surged by 29.07% over the past year, outperforming the rise in the S&P 500 Index during the same period. Looking ahead, the stock's sharp rise over the last year has already helped drive it to a level which is relatively expensive compared to the rest of its industry. We feel, however, that other strengths this company displays justify these higher price levels.
  • The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.45, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Despite the fact that SNE's debt-to-equity ratio is low, the quick ratio, which is currently 0.63, displays a potential problem in covering short-term cash needs.
  • You can view the full analysis from the report here: SNE
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