Technology

Sony PlayStation business continues to come on leaps and bounds after a 27 percent increase in gaming revenue helped the company record a $2.1 billion profit in Q2.

The PlayStation division is Sonytop performer and once again that was the case, carding $4.9 billion in sales during the quarter with an operating profit of $800 million for the division, thatup around 65 percent year-on-year. That caused Sonyoperating profit to jump by 59 percent as revenue rose six percent to $19.6 billion.

In raw sales, Sony has sold over 86 million PS4 consoles to date thanks to shifting3.9 million during Q2, though thatdown a little on 4.2 million one year previous. However, a strong appetitefor games continues. Exclusive title ‘Gold of War& sold over three million copies in its first three days of sale in April, while ‘Spider-Man& clocked over 3.3 million sales in its first three days last month.

Meanwhile, SonyPlayStation business continues to grow. The company just announced that itshipped over 86 million PS4 consoles worldwide; for comparison, the last figure given for the PS3 was 80 million back in 2013, while the original PlayStation managed around 102 million.

Outside of gaming, Sony saw big gains in sales within financial services, its second-biggest revenue generator which jumped 27 percent, and semiconductors, up 11 percent, although losses for its troubled mobile unit widened to reach $265 million for the quarter while mobile revenue declined by 32 percent year-on-year.

Sony is so bullish about the rest of the year that it has raised its full-year operating profit forecast to 870 billion JPY, that$7.7 billion and an increase of about 30 percent to the original target. That would represent a record for annual income.

Thatpartly down to the strong performance of its PlayStation but also the impact of its $2.3 billion buyout of EMI Music Publishing, as pointed out by Bloomberg. Sony previously held a 39.8 percent share in the venture but the deal — which just got the regulatory green light in Europe — will see the valueof original stake increase while adding additional revenue from the business. Tellingly, those EMI gains represent 55 percent of the additional revenue Sony is forecasting to hit this financial year.

Earlier this year omni:us, an AI-driven service which is able to process digital documents (some of which contain handwriting) by classifying them and extracting the valuable data, revealed it was working with over half of the top 10 insurance providers in the German-speaking DACH region.

Itnow closed a Series A round of funding bringing its total funding to date to €19.7M ($22.5 million). Back in early 2017 it announced €4.2M in seed funding, from IBB Berlin, as well as individual investors (including Michael Schmitt, ex-engineering director at Google Switzerland). Then in March this year it announced further funds which brought the total to $6.5 million, secured from individual angels and VC companies, including Anthemis.

This latest investment was led by Berlin-headquartered VC firm Target Global, followed by MMC Ventures and Talis Capital. Existing investors, Unbound and Anthemis, also participated. This will make it a well-capitalized player in the new area of AI-driven insurance platforms.

Itso far working with several top global insurance companies & such as Allianz, Baloise and AmTrust & as well as insurtech firms & such as Wefox & to boost efficiency and focus on its core competencies.

Sofie Quidenus-Wahlforss, CEO and Founder of omni:us, said: &We know the insurance industry will move from process to data-driven over the coming years. To meet this need, omni:us is the trusted partner, supporting insurance companies along this transformational path. Our deep data based approach enables insurers to better understand their customers and launch new products and services on a more bespoke and individual level. With this round of funding, we will bring our cognitive systems to the next level and expand into the US market later this year.&

Mike Lobanov, General Partner at Target Global, said: &omni:us functionality is tested to provide best-in-class quality in claims digitalization… We believe automated claims handling will become a new standard in the insurance industry that will substantially cut costs and make insurance more affordable to customers.&

Dan Bailey, Investment Manager, MMC Ventures, said: &Insurance carriers are undergoing a once in a generation technology shift, embracing new digital core platforms and adopting best-in-class digitisation and analytics… Sofie and her co-founders have assembled a world-class team, and we&re delighted to be backing them in their vision of bringing AI to the insurance industry.&

Back in 2015 omni:us launched as SearchInk with the aim of combining machine learning with handwriting recognition. The upshot would be the ability to semantically label handwritten documents.

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