“PlayStation Soars: PS5 Sales Skyrocket During Holiday Season, Driving $11 Billion in Revenue”
Sony has released its financial results for the nine months ending December 31, 2024, reflecting growth across all metrics, particularly during the holiday season.
The platform owner experienced significant increases in revenue within its Games & Network Services sector, with the PS5 marking its best quarter to date. The company has raised its sales forecasts for PlayStation as a result.
Here’s what you need to know:
The figures:
For the nine months ended December 31, 2024
- Revenue: ¥10.3 trillion ($66.9 billion, up 8.2% year-on-year)
- Operating income: ¥1.2 trillion ($7.8 billion, up 22.9%)
Games & network services
- Revenue: ¥3.6 trillion ($23.4 billion, up 13.8%)
- Operating income: ¥322.1 billion ($2.1 billion, up 74.8%)
The key points:
Sony delivered 9.5 million PS5 units during the holiday period (Q3), compared to the previous year. This figure includes sales of the PlayStation Pro, which debuted in November 2024.
The holiday season turned out to be the strongest quarter for the PS5 thus far, with the company noting that it was “approximately equivalent to the cumulative sales of the PS4 for the same timeframe since launch.”
Over the nine months ending December 2024, the PS5 sold 15.7 million units. If you take into account the sales in Q1, a total of 20.2 million units were sold in 2024.
By the conclusion of the third quarter, the number of monthly active users surged to 129 million, an increase from 123 million compared to December 2023 – setting a record for MAUs in PlayStation history. The total playtime also rose by 2% year-over-year during Q3, marking the seventh consecutive year of year-over-year growth.
Over 40% of consumers who purchased a PS5 during the holiday season were new to the console, which “significantly contributed” to the MAU growth.
Total game sales reached 95.9 million during the third quarter, with 11.6 million from first-party titles. While overall game sales rose from 89.7 million sold in the same period last year, first-party sales declined from 16.2 million.
In its earnings call, Sony emphasized the success of Astro Bot and Helldivers 2 – two first-party titles launched in September and August 2024, respectively.
Astro Bot s