Net profit fell to 121.84 billion yen ($1.14 billion) or 263.40 yen per share on a diluted basis, from 179.00 billion yen or 391.02 yen a share in the previous fiscal year.

Sony said an improvement in the global economy and increased demand for information technology goods helped push up group sales by 9 per cent on a local currency basis during the year.

However, on a yen-denominated basis, group sales dropped 1.7 per cent to 6.687 trillion yen and pre-tax profit fell 30 per cent to 264.31 billion yen.In the current fiscal year, Sony said it expects group net profit of 120.00 billion yen on group sales of 7 trillion yen. If that proves to be the case, it would be the third consecutive year of on-year falls in Sony's group net profit.

In the year ended March 31, sales of electronic goods, which make up the biggest portion of Sony's revenue, rose 1.1 per cent to 4.720 trillion yen, while operating profit fell 9.5 per cent to 118.63 billion yen.

Sony unveiled in March a next-generation home game machine called PlayStation 2, which has sold briskly over the last two months. As of the end of March, the company had shipped 1.41 million units of the new machine.But partly because of costs related to introducing PlayStation 2, operating profit for game products fell 43.3 per cent to 77.35 billion yen. Game product sales dropped 16.5 per cent to 654.74 billion yen.