| thx1139 said: Sure this will be ignored,but will mention anyway. Over a year ago Sony said in one of thier reports that they count items as shipped as soon as they are ordered. So if BestBuy (or anyone else for that matter) placed a order on September 30th for PS3s that have not even been manufactured yet Sony reports it as shipped. Shipped really should be called sold. This isnt an uncommon accounting practice. |
ok, I'm not getting into the over/undertracked thing, but I'm hoping to clarify some stuff.
Financial statement that I'm about to quote - http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/07q4_sony.pdf
"*Beginning with the quarter ended June 30, 2007, the method of reporting hardware and software unit sales has been changed from production shipments to recorded sales"
The 06Q4 results reads as - http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/06q4_sony.pdf
"*Production shipments of hardware and software units are counted upon shipment of the products from manufacturing bases. Sales of such products are recognized when the products are delivered to customers."
As noted, recorded sales mean sales to retailers, where previously they were just reporting what they manufactured. Due to this, If you just look through the financial results you get a wrong number (high by about 2.3m units for PS3, and I don't know if there is a proper way to fully count PS2 sales since their chart only goes back to 2006). However, Sony does have a web page that shows actual sold to retailer numbers - http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps3_sale_e.html
However, reading through all the other Q4 financial reports I didn't see any notes stating that they count shipped as soon as they get an order. I'm under the believe that Sony follows the same reporting practice as Nintendo and Microsoft where a sale is recorded when products are delivered to the customer (or essentially no longer in Sony's possession).
