Sony Forecasts Profit Thanks To iPhone Camera

Sony (Swiss: SONC.SW - news) lost $1.1bn (£700m) in the last financial year after a turbulent few months which saw its movie studio attacked by suspected North Korean hackers.

But it expects to bounce back with a profit of $1.2bn (£780m) in this financial year thanks to booming demand for its image sensors used in Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) 's iPhone 6.

The expensive fallout from the hacking saga was compounded by the rise of cheap Chinese smartphones which managed to dent Sony's mobile division.

A series of layoffs and asset sales, coupled with the withdrawal from the laptop market, capped off the tough 12-month period.

But a source of cheer for the company is its production of camera sensors used in the latest iPhone 6 and Samsung's Galaxy S6.

Demand for the sensors is expected to continue to rise, and Sony is investing $1.7bn (£1.1bn) to boost output.

Each phone sold generates around $20 (£12) of revenue for Sony, which is now the world's largest supplier of image sensors in digital cameras.

Sony was once known for creating its own groundbreaking products, but bosses at the firm say they are happy to create innovative solutions for other companies' products.

President Kazuo Hirai told the Wall Street Journal: "Whether it’s a device that goes into other manufacturers’ products or sometimes our own, if there's innovation there … that's something I get excited about."

Earlier this week Samsung's first quarter profits fell by 39% as a result of people switching to the iPhone 6 .

Apple sold 61 million iPhones in the first three months of the year, an increase of 40% from a year earlier, which drove another quarter of big profits.