Sony shares soar as games strength boosts investor confidence

By Sam Nussey

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony's shares closed up 8.7% in Tokyo on Friday after the technology and entertainment conglomerate reported strong results at its games and music divisions.

Sony's gaming unit reported a 37% jump in quarterly profit and PlayStation 5 sales of 9.4 million units during the year-end shopping season.

"These results reaffirmed PlayStation's status as the dominant high-performance console gaming ecosystem…," Bernstein analyst David Dai wrote in a note.

Sony also reported strong software sales, despite a lack of high profile titles, with investors looking to upcoming releases this year to support consumer demand.

"Game margins have plenty of room for upside," Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a note.

Sony, whose President Hiroki Totoki is due to add the CEO position from April, also reported robust profit growth at its music business, helping offset weakness at the pictures unit.

The company raised its operating profit forecast for the year ending in March by 2% to 1.34 trillion yen.

Sony said on Thursday it would buy back up to 30 million shares for some 50 billion yen.

(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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