Sony has dragged itself back into the black, recording its first annual profit for five years.
The Japanese electronics and entertainment company reported earnings of 43 billion yen (£279.3 million) following four straight years of red ink. Sony's annual loss of 457 billion yen (£3.67 billion) the previous year was the worst in the company's 66 years.
Sony recorded a 93.9 billion yen (£610.1 million) profit in the fourth quarter, with big help from a weaker yen that boosts overseas earnings.
Tokyo-based Sony expects the recovery to continue, and projected Thursday a 50 billion yen (£325 million) profit for the fiscal year through March 2014, up 16 percent.
A weak yen helps Japanese exporters, and the dollar has gained 20 percent against the yen in recent months.
The weak yen is expected to continue in the coming months because of the policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office last year.
Sony had sunk to a 255.2 billion yen loss for the January-March period in 2012, slammed by its money-losing TV business and competition from rivals Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.
Sales for the January-March period rose 8 percent to 1.7 trillion yen (£10.9 billion), mainly from a favorable currency rate.
Sony's annual earnings bettered its own forecast for a 40 billion yen (£260 million) profit, and that of analysts surveyed by FactSet at about 33 billion yen (£214.3 million).
Sony has been shedding jobs and selling assets and parts of businesses in recent years in an effort to achieve a turnaround. It has lost much of its historical glamour as the maker of the Walkman portable music player and the PlayStation 3 video-game console.
But the cheap yen, which will make Sony products cheaper abroad, is almost certain to work as a big plus.
