Sega reaches financial targets one full year ahead of schedule in record fiscal year

• Sega's financial results show the success of its medium-term plan outlined in 2021
• FY2023 has been Sega's most successful of the past decade

Dramatic operational changes have been afoot at Sega for three years now, with the fiscal year just ended marking the penultimate chapter in the company's medium-term plan.

And yet, as the results reveal, Sega has already reached its medium-term targets for next March - achieving the goals set out in its plan one full year ahead of schedule.

This strategy has proven indisputably successful so far, as financial year 2023 has wrapped up with a 21.4% year-on-year net sales rise and Sega’s strongest result of the past decade.

A total of ¥389.6 billion ($2.5 billion) was generated last year, edging ahead of 2014’s ¥378 billion ($2.4 billion) and far outpacing more recent performances in 2021 and 2022: ¥277.7 billion ($1.8 billion) and ¥320.9 billion ($2.1 billion) respectively.

Operating income and ordinary income also both reached their highest in the past 10 years, up 46% and 48.4% year-on-year respectively. Operating income was ¥46.7 billion ($298.4 million) and ordinary income was ¥49.4 billion ($315.7 million) in FY2023.

A record year

While Sega’s revenue comes from all gaming platforms and even pachinko slot machines, mobile is beginning to play a bigger factor since the acquisition of Angry Birds maker Rovio last August. Part of Sega’s ongoing plan is also to promote remakes and spinoffs - with mobile being a popular landing spot for F2P spinoff titles.

Sega generated approximately four million remake and spinoff unit sales in FY2022 and 3.5 million in FY2023, with ambitions for the new fiscal year to bring about another five million.

Subscriptions are being actively promoted too.

Profits mirrored the overall rise in income, once again the best Sega has seen in over 10 years, at ¥45.9 billion ($293.3 million) in the last financial year. This marks an increase from ¥37 billion ($236.4 million) in FY2022 and a mere ¥1.2 billion ($7.7 million) in FY2021, demonstrating the success of the medium-term plan in action.

"The second year of the medium-term plan saw significant strides in business performance," said Sega CEO Haruki Satami.

"In the consumer area of the entertainment contents business, Sonic Frontiers and Persona 5 Royal (remaster) were hits and performance in F2P titles was also brisk. Sales and profits were up significantly year on year across all of our businesses, while losses narrowed.

"The result was net sales of ¥389.6 billion, ordinary income of ¥49.4 billion, and ROE of 14.7% - in other words, we were able to reach our targets for the final year of the medium-term plan a year ahead of schedule."

Going forward, thanks particularly to the acquisition of Rovio, Sega plans to "accelerate our development of mobile game versions of SEGA’s existing IP". As of Q3, Sega had generated ¥53.8 billion ($343.8 million) from mobile and Rovio ¥34 billion ($217.2 million), though only 12% of Sega’s mobile revenue came from overseas, versus 97% of Rovio’s.

It is clear to see, therefore, the role Rovio will play in Sega’s global expansion plans.