Tokyo, Jiji Press

Sony Corp. said Wednesday its group operating profit in April-September surged 17.3 pct from a year before to 509,880 million yen, hitting a record high for the third consecutive fiscal first-half period.

The result reflects brisk sales of semiconductor image sensors used mainly in smartphone cameras and digital cameras.

But Sony's group sales sagged 2.1 pct to 4,047,983 million yen in the first half of fiscal 2019. The group's net profit fell 14.9 pct to 340,009 million yen.

For the full year through March 2020, the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant lowered its sales projection by 200 billion yen to 8.4 trillion yen, amid expectations of weak performance by its games business due to delays in releases of major video game titles and sluggish console sales.

Sales of television sets are also expected to be slack.

Meanwhile, the company revised up its operating profit estimate by 30 billion yen to 840 billion yen, thanks to strong semiconductor operations.

Sony executive Naomi Matsuoka said at a press conference that the company's mainstay gaming business may be negatively affected if the United States imposes its fourth round of punitive tariffs against China in December.

"Preparations are under way for necessary countermeasures," Matsuoka added.

Also on Wednesday, Sony announced a plan to expand its image sensor plant in the city of Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan.

Investment will total about 100 billion yen, with construction seen beginning in December. The company aims to launch operations at the additional facility in April 2021.

The move comes in light of an expected surge in demand for the sensors not only for smartphones, but also in the field of the internet of things, or IoT, and automated driving technologies.

Sony produces the sensors also at plants in three other Japanese prefectures -- Kumamoto, Oita and Yamagata.