Sony returns to black on healthy chip, game, battery sales

TOKYO (AP) - Sony Corp. has reported a January-March profit of 27.7 billion yen ($250 million) on the back of healthy sales of image sensors, PlayStation 4 game software and batteries for mobile devices, marking a recovery from its red ink a year ago.

Tokyo-based Sony had an 88 billion yen loss the same period last year.

Sony reported Friday that its quarterly sales rose 4.4 percent to 1.9 trillion yen ($17 billion).

For the fiscal year through March, Sony's profit fell 50 percent to 73.3 billion yen ($660 million) from 148 billion yen, partly because of costs related to repair of damage from a major earthquake that hit southwestern Japan in April 2016.

The quake shut down Sony's semiconductor manufacturing facility. An unfavorable exchange rate also damaged Sony's results.