Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony has reported a 7 per cent surge in profit for the July-September quarter compared to the previous year, prompting the company to raise its full-year forecast, thanks largely to the hit film Demon Slayer.
The strong performance of the anime movie was cited as a significant contributor to this growth, having become not only the highest-grossing anime film ever worldwide but also the biggest Japanese film of all time.
The Tokyo-based manufacturer of PlayStation consoles saw its July-September profit climb to 311 billion yen (£1.6 billion), up from 291.8 billion yen in the same period last year.
Favourable results across Sony Corp.’s streaming services, music business, and computer chips division also bolstered these figures. Quarterly sales for the period rose by 5 per cent, reaching 3.1 trillion yen (£16.5 billion).
Sony now anticipates a 1.05 trillion yen (£5.6 billion) profit for the fiscal year ending in March, an increase from its earlier projection of 970 billion yen (£5.2 billion).
The company had recorded a 1.07 trillion yen profit in the preceding fiscal year.
Income growth from Sony’s mobile phone sensors further contributed to the positive financial results. While the company acknowledged a 30 billion yen (£160 million) impact on operating income for the fiscal year due to Donald Trump’s tariffs, this negative effect was largely offset by robust revenue from Demon Slayer.
The anime film Infinity Castle, the first of a planned trilogy, is based on one arc of the popular 2016 manga series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba by Koyoharu Gotouge.
The manga series follows a young boy named Tanjiro Kamado and his sister Nezuko Kamado, after they find their family slaughtered by demons. It follows the pair as they embark on a quest to fight demons and save Nezuko from a curse.
A previous film, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train, was released in 2020 and performed very well both critically and commercially.
Distributed by the Sony-owned Crunchyroll and made on budget of $20m (£14.82m), Infinity Castle stayed at No 1 at the US and Canada box office, bringing in $17.3m (£12.8m) in just its second weekend after setting the record for the largest anime debut ever in the region by opening to a massive $70m (£51.8m) when it released on 12 September, according to multiple US outlets.
