Gaming, Home Entertainment To Fuel Sony's (SNE) Q3 Earnings?

Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE) is set to report third-quarter fiscal 2017 results on Feb 2.

Last quarter, the company reported earnings of 90 cents per share, reflectinga beat of 66.7%. Overall, Sony has an impressive earnings surprise history, having beaten estimates thrice inthe trailing four quarters, resulting in an average positive surprise of 47.3%.

Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Factors at Play

Over the past few quarters, Sony’s flagship gaming product, the PlayStation (PS), has been acting as solid growth catalyst. Particularly, sales of PS4, the latest generation gaming console, have outnumbered all its previous versions. The company is largely banking on its PS4 customer base of 40 million for increased traction of the new games.

PS4 Pro, the upgraded version of PS4 gaming console, and its virtual reality (VR) system, are anticipated to act as major profit churners for the gaming business this quarter as well. Further, an array of game applications for mobile products launched over the past few quarters is also likely to act as a catalyst for the segment’s sales in the quarter under review.

Moreover, improvement in the product mix, on account of a shift to high value-added models, is expected to benefit the Imaging Products & Solutions as well as Home Entertainment & Sound segments. Further, sale of the Chinese factory in the camera module business and increase in image sensor sales for mobile products are expected to benefit the Semiconductor business significantly. The company is also experiencing strong growth in its Music segment, driven by higher-than-expected Visual Media and Platform sales as well as Recorded Music sales. Further, increase in media networks and television productions sales, as well as insurance premium revenues are expected to stoke growth of the Pictures and Financial Services segment, respectively. Other positive industry trends that are likely to fuel the results include growth in smartphone for mobile products, greater adoption of dual-lens cameras and improvement in sales to Chinese manufacturer.

Further, Sony’s concerted efforts on cost-saving initiatives, lower exposure in low-profit geographic regions and reduction in advertising & promotion expenses, are expected to prove conducive to bottom-line growth in the to-be-reported quarter. This apart, the company’s major restructuring and internal shuffle efforts are also expected to drive profitability in the upcoming results.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model does not conclusively show an earnings beat for Sony in this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESPand a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. But that is not the case here as you will see below.

Zacks ESP: Earnings ESP for the company is 0.00% as both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at 89 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Sony carries a Zacks Rank #1, which increases the predictive power of the ESP. However, the company’s ESP of 0.00% makes surprise prediction difficult.

We caution against Sell-rated stocks (Zacks Rank #4 or 5) going into an earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.

Stocks to Consider

Here are some companies that you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter:

Party City Holdco Inc. (NYSE:PRTY) has an Earnings ESP of +2.76% and a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Boyd Gaming Corporation (NYSE:BYD) has an Earnings ESP of +2.41% and a Zacks Rank #2.

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI) has an Earnings ESP of +2.70% and a Zacks Rank #2.

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