Sony, the Japanese entertainment and electronics group, has forecast a sixfold leap in operating profits for its current fiscal year in its most bullish announcement since Sir Howard Stringer took control of the company in 2005.

However, Sony admitted that after a “not ideal” launch of the PlayStation3 (PS3) games console in Japan and the US, its games division would stay in the red and weigh heavily on group profits until next year.

Hoping to draw a veil over a difficult fiscal 2006 – in which Sony booked 51 billion yen (£213 million) in provisions to cover an embarrassing global recall of laptop batteries – the group said that operating profits for its year ending next March would be Y440 billion.

Much of the predicted profit is forecast from flat-screen televisions and digital cameras. After a year boosted by block-buster films, including Casino Royale, and with Spider-Man 3 poised for a box-office record, Sony’s movie business is also forecast to advance strongly.

Sony’s group profit forecast would mark a 513 per cent rise in earnings over 2006, an apparent vindication of “Stringer-ism” – the sometimes divisive attempt by Sony’s first nonJapanese chairman to shake the group out of its long slump.

One of Sir Howard’s steps on becoming chairman two years ago was to promise group-wide operating margins of 5 per cent within three years. Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony’s chief financial officer, said that the company was “on track” to achieve that.

If Sony hits its current-year sales forecast of Y8.780 trillion, group operating margins will be 5.01 per cent.

However, results for the year to last March revealed hurdles to Sony’s ultimate turnaround. Despite a successful launch of the PS3 in Europe, Sony admitted that its global shipment target of six million PS3 units by the end of March 2007 had been missed by 500,000 units.

The games division made operating losses of Y232 billion last year.

Sony’s results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006 set a four-year record for earnings weakness. The net loss for the January-to-March quarter was Y67.6 billion.

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