Sony Corp said Thursday that its net profit for the second quarter soared on turnaround in its electronics operations.

Sony's group net profit for the quarter soared to 73.7 billion yen compared to 17 billion yen a year before. Its group revenue increased 12 percent to 2.083 trillion yen compared to a year before.

The firm's consumer electronics division especially showed good performance, attracting many consumers to Bravia flat-screen TVs, Vaio PCs, digital cameras and camcorders. The division's group operating profit reached 106.9 billion yen, recovered from the profit of 8 billion yen a year before.

Although Sony's LCD TV didn't attract so much in the quarter, new models released recently are showing good sales in the second half, according to Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda,

As for its game division, PlayStation3 (PS3) game console sales reached 1.31 million units in the quarter. But the division's operations loss was serious in the quarter, reaching 96.7 billion yen, compared to 43.5 billion operating loss a year before. Sony had no choice but to sell the console less than the cost of manufacturing to compete with other game consoles made by Nintendo and Microsoft. But the game division is going to be well to make the business more profitable in the next fiscal year by lowering the manufacturing cost, Oneda said.

Sony's results are based on U.S. accounting standards.

Electronics Nintendo Microsoft Japan