PS plus: decline in membership numbers? That's behind it

Sony has published the latest annual report this week, including information about the success of PlayStation Plus. The report can be found in that 46.3 million subscribers were counted in the past quarter. These are 1.3 million more than in the same quarter of the previous year.

However, when comparing the individual quarters, it becomes clear that it last made a decline in membership numbers. Below is an overview:

• Q1 2020: 45 million
• Q2 2020: 45.9 million

• Q3 2020: 47.4 million
• Q4 2020: 47.6 million
• Q1 2021: 46.3 million

The fiscal year of Sony begins on 1 April of a year and runs until 31 March of the following year, so that the quarters of last year listed in the list cover the period from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021. The last quarter in the list ran from 1 April 2021 to 30 June 2021.

But how did it happen in the past quarter to decline the membership numbers? There are several theories for that. According to speculation, the decline in the context of expired sample subscriptions could be registered, which were registered in the course of the launch of the PS5. Alling is unclear how Sony evaluates the sample memberships.

It is probably that during the past year due to the Covid-19-Pandemic initially a huge increase in memberships took place and many of these subscriptions run slowly due to the relaxation. This is a comparison with the previous year: from the 4th business quarter of 2019 (1 January 2020 to 31 March 2020) towards the 1st business quarter 2020 (April 1, 2020 to 30 June 2020) was a huge leap of 41.5 million Subscribers towards 45 million subscribers. The worldwide Lockdowns gave PS plus apparently tailwind.

+++ PS plus August 2021: "Free Games" for download +++

The fact that declines can come through again, in turn, the transition from Q4 2018 towards Q1 2019 clarified, as the number of subscribers dropped from 36.4 million to 36.2 million.

Here is an overview that shows that PS plus is growing in the long term.

• Q1 2019: 36.2 million
• Q1 2020: 45 million
• Q1 2021: 46.3 million

Decline of active users

Even with the monthly active users, a decline in the first quarter of the year of 114 million active players in the first quarter of the year of 104 million active players in the first quarter of the year 2021 took place. But here too, Corona should have ensured that the values ​​are only partially comparable .

The number of users in the Sony's annual reports are only since the 1st business quarter 2020, so no serious comparison with the time before Corona is possible. Below the known numbers:

• Q1 2020: 114 million
• Q2 2020: 108 million
• Q3 2020: 114 million
• Q4 2020: 109 million
• Q1 2021: 104 million

Sony answers

Sony also reported to speak now and also assumes that the situation around Covid-19 is responsible for fluctuations.

So the Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki explained: "Of course, 104 million are not a strong number, but we see a decline in trend in it? We do not believe that. We try to analyze different elements, but there are no eye-catching trends that we can hold on. Maybe we need to continue watching this or next month and perform an analysis. "

Other messages from Sony:

• PS5 production: Sufficient chipsets secured for the current year
• PS5 & PS4: New delivery numbers incl. PS plus-subscription

According to Totoki, the effects of Lockdowns last year were so significant that the comparison with this period is not usable as a trend. "Compared to the 2019 financial year, there is an increase," says his other words.

Other messages on PlayStation Plus.

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