And not the gaming division, but to spend by the whole Sony in acquisitions, investments and Sony stock repurchases during FY2023.
As you may remember they had a 'strategic investments' budget of 2 or more Trillion yen to spend during FY2021,FY2022 and FY2023, but when showing the FY2022 results they decreased it to 1.8 Trillion yen:
Source (page 22)
These 0.2+ Trillion yen ($1.48B+) went to be spent on image sensors, and servers for corporate R&D and the gaming division (which means that probably this FY they'll release big MP games, may plan to expand PS cloud gaming to mobile or simply it's by the PSN growth due to the planned huge console sales).
2T yen a couple years ago were $18B, but now are $14,8B due to change in dollar and yen value. So they decided to pause on acquisitions and investments in the long term and continue in mid to long term once the market is more favorable. "Recent changes in the market environment" may have been regulators being harsher than expected with the ABK acquisitions.
Source (page 22)
From this 1.8T yen (now $13.333B), they spent 1.0527T (now $7.8B) during FY2022.
In FY2021 they did spend 323.9B yen less: 728.1B yen (now $5,39B).
So the remaining budget for FY2023 is 1.8T - 1.0527T - 728.1B = 19.9B yen ($147.3M)
Source (page 3)
May 24th there will be also a Sony Business Segment Meeting where the bosses of the divisions of Sony will share more info about their fiscal year, so probably Jimbo may explain something else about potential future unannounced acquisitions, but not likely at all. As happened last year in that meeting, he'll focus on detail and reviewing the results of the recently ended FY shown and make some overal forecast for the future and explain the current plans or strategy for their division detailing, more than in the ones posted in their fiscal year report.
A few days before, May 18th they have a Corporate Strategy Meeting where the Sony CEO and President (no Jimbo that day) will update their overall strategy of the corportation, so may also add some extra detail over the known acquisitions but as happened last year pretty likely won't announce new acquisitions or explain much more than they explained in the FY report before.
Everything posted above is factual data from Sony.
My personal thoughts:
Does this mean Sony can't acquire? No, they can acquire and have money and other stuff to do so, only means they don't want to acquire during the current fiscal year. If they had planned or desired to make more acquisitions during the current FY they'd have increased this budget instead of incresing it.
Does this means they won't announce any acquisition more during the current FY? Means that pretty likely won't announce any acquisition more during the current fiscal year, even if they might announce it close to its end in March/April 2024 and count it for the next FY, that pretty likely will have a new budget for 'strategic investments' separated from this 2T/1.8T yen one (which is for FY2021+FY2022+FY2023 only).
Seems that they'll wait for a better moment where the dollar vs yen value is more favorable to them, and maybe also prefered to have a low profile in acquisitions and investments until the ABK acquisition is over, to see what all regulators end doing with it, since it could also impact potential future big Sony acquisitions.
As you may remember they had a 'strategic investments' budget of 2 or more Trillion yen to spend during FY2021,FY2022 and FY2023, but when showing the FY2022 results they decreased it to 1.8 Trillion yen:
Source (page 22)
These 0.2+ Trillion yen ($1.48B+) went to be spent on image sensors, and servers for corporate R&D and the gaming division (which means that probably this FY they'll release big MP games, may plan to expand PS cloud gaming to mobile or simply it's by the PSN growth due to the planned huge console sales).
2T yen a couple years ago were $18B, but now are $14,8B due to change in dollar and yen value. So they decided to pause on acquisitions and investments in the long term and continue in mid to long term once the market is more favorable. "Recent changes in the market environment" may have been regulators being harsher than expected with the ABK acquisitions.
Source (page 22)
From this 1.8T yen (now $13.333B), they spent 1.0527T (now $7.8B) during FY2022.
In FY2021 they did spend 323.9B yen less: 728.1B yen (now $5,39B).
So the remaining budget for FY2023 is 1.8T - 1.0527T - 728.1B = 19.9B yen ($147.3M)
Source (page 3)
May 24th there will be also a Sony Business Segment Meeting where the bosses of the divisions of Sony will share more info about their fiscal year, so probably Jimbo may explain something else about potential future unannounced acquisitions, but not likely at all. As happened last year in that meeting, he'll focus on detail and reviewing the results of the recently ended FY shown and make some overal forecast for the future and explain the current plans or strategy for their division detailing, more than in the ones posted in their fiscal year report.
A few days before, May 18th they have a Corporate Strategy Meeting where the Sony CEO and President (no Jimbo that day) will update their overall strategy of the corportation, so may also add some extra detail over the known acquisitions but as happened last year pretty likely won't announce new acquisitions or explain much more than they explained in the FY report before.
Everything posted above is factual data from Sony.
My personal thoughts:
Does this mean Sony can't acquire? No, they can acquire and have money and other stuff to do so, only means they don't want to acquire during the current fiscal year. If they had planned or desired to make more acquisitions during the current FY they'd have increased this budget instead of incresing it.
Does this means they won't announce any acquisition more during the current FY? Means that pretty likely won't announce any acquisition more during the current fiscal year, even if they might announce it close to its end in March/April 2024 and count it for the next FY, that pretty likely will have a new budget for 'strategic investments' separated from this 2T/1.8T yen one (which is for FY2021+FY2022+FY2023 only).
Seems that they'll wait for a better moment where the dollar vs yen value is more favorable to them, and maybe also prefered to have a low profile in acquisitions and investments until the ABK acquisition is over, to see what all regulators end doing with it, since it could also impact potential future big Sony acquisitions.
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