SONY RETURNS TO PROFIT IN Q4

Sony Corp. rebounded to a profit in the fourth quarter, beating estimates on a one-two combination of the strength of its movie and music divisions and the effects of a weaker yen.

The company had a group net income of 15.8 billion yen ($127.6 million), or 17.20 yen a share, in Q4, compared with a loss of 36.7 billion yen, or 40.80 yen, a year earlier. Sales in the fourth quarter rose 16.5% to 1.9 trillion yen. We're assuming that's a lotta zeroes (no pun intended).

Overseas sales of Sony's electronics products account for more than 50 percent of the Tokyo-based company's revenue.

The yen's average value against the U.S. dollar in the fourth quarter was 9.4% lower than a year ago, boosting the value of Sony's overseas sales when converted back to yen. Maybe it’s real money, maybe it’s just clever math. We don’t know for sure. We’re word people, not number people.

In addition to a stronger yen against the dollar, Sony's Q4 earnings last year were also bogged down, in part, by costs to develop the PlayStation 2 video-game console, which debuted in March last year.

For the full year, Sony reported an annual profit drop of 86%, mostly due to taking a one-time charge to write off movie and television advertising costs.

Group net income fell to 16.7 billion yen in the year ended March, from 121.8 billion yen a year earlier. That compares with the company's own full-year forecast of 5 billion yen made in January. Sales rose 9% to 7.3 trillion yen.