For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. Not only can it impact your investment portfolio, but it can also help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

Another factor that can influence investors is FOMO, or the fear of missing out, especially with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Sony (SONY) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to SONY for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Sony's Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Sony's main business drivers.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Sony Group Corporation designs, manufactures and sells several consumer and industrial electronic equipment. The company’s product roster comprises audio and video equipment, televisions, network services, game hardware and software, mobile phones and image sensors. Additionally, Sony is active in the production, acquisition and distribution of recorded music and the management and licensing of the words and music for songs.

In addition, Sony operates several financial services businesses that include banking operations and life and non-life insurance operations, both of which are managed by its Japanese subsidiaries. Sony Financial Group mainly focuses on insurance, banking and other operations primarily through Sony Life. Markedly, Sony Bank offers mortgage loans and foreign-currency deposits to consumers via online services. Also, the company has an advertising agency and a network services business in Japan.

The company currently has six major reportable segments – G&NS (accounting for 32.8% of total operating revenues in fiscal 2023); Music (12.4%); Pictures (11.5%); Entertainment, Technology & Services (ET&S) (18.9%); Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS) (12.3%); and Financial Services (12.1%).

(Note: Zacks identifies fiscal years by the month in which the fiscal year ends, while SONY identifies its fiscal year by the calendar year in which it begins; so comparable figures for any given fiscal year, as published by SONY, will refer to this same fiscal year as being the year before the same year, as identified by Zacks)

Bottom Line

Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of a few things: research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in Sony a decade ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.

According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in May 2015 would be worth $4,089.29, or a 308.93% gain, as of May 2, 2025. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

Story Continues

Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 165.81% and gold's return of 163.05% over the same time frame.

Looking ahead, analysts are expecting more upside for SONY. Sony is poised to grow on strength across Game & Network Services (G&NS), Music and Financial Services amid woes in the Entertainment, Technology & Services (ET&S) unit. Financial Services revenues are benefiting from sales growth at Sony Life and higher investment gains from market volatility. The Music unit’s sales are backed by higher revenues from streaming services in Recorded Music and Music Publishing. Solid hardware and non-first-party game software sales and forex impacts are fueling the GN&S unit. Driven by momentum in Financial Services and G&NS units, it has raised its fiscal 2024 sales view to ¥13,200 billion from ¥12,710 billion. However, a fall in television and smartphone sales due to lower unit shipments hurt ET&S. Soft sales of image sensors for mobile products and lower unit sales are likely to weigh on the I&SS unit.
 The stock is up 8.13% over the past four weeks, and no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 4 higher, for fiscal 2025. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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Sony Corporation (SONY):Free Stock Analysis Report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

Zacks Investment Research

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