iSuppli: Teardown of Sony's PlayStation 3

[dbot]

SlorgNet said:

TheSource said:

2) iSupply reported the figures in dollars, which is fine. But the dollar buys 30% fewer yen that last year. Sony is a company that operates in Yen. So the losses are likely bigger, because the PS3 components were bought en masse when a dollar bought more yen, but the product made for those components sells for less than 'the sum of its parts' even accounting for the expected loss.

3) iSupply does suck at predicting the future, but they do have a good track record in determing what it costs to make a product.

 

Sony is a multinational company and does NOT operate on yen. They restate their overall accounts in current yen for end-of-the-year reports, but that has nothing to do with daily operations. Their Euro biz accumulates euros, US biz dollars, etc. The PS3 is built mostly in China, with a few high-end designed in Japan, so the yuan-dollar-euro exchange rate is what matters. Thing is, the Wii and 360 are also built in China, so no company has any advantage over the others.

iSupply doesn't have any special insight into Sony's cost structure. They seem to be running down a vendor list and estimating individual parts, which misses (1) volume discounts and (2) Sony's internal cost reduction system, which is highly efficient.

 

@SlorgNet - Nice post.  People don't seem to understand the bolded part when they discuss Sony's financials.