Sony Group Corp. said Thursday it is considering spinning off Sony Financial Group Inc. in the next few years to allow it to better focus on its entertainment and chip businesses.

Sony Group plans to retain a stake of around 20 percent in the financial unit after the listing, the group's president, Hiroki Totoki, said at a press conference outlining the company's business strategy for fiscal 2023.

Sony Financial was previously listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, but the parent company made it a wholly-owned unit in 2020 to speed up decision-making.

The financial company offers various services through its units Sony Bank Inc., Sony Life Insurance Co. and Sony Assurance Inc.

"We are going to need an unprecedented amount of investment for medium- and long-term growth", Totoki said at the press conference.

Sony, which has transformed itself from an electronics company to a group with diverse operations, earns more than half of its operating profit from gaming, music, movies and other entertainment businesses.

Sony Group last month reported a record operating profit of 1.21 trillion yen ($8.8 billion) for fiscal 2022, with sales exceeding 10 trillion yen for the first time due to robust video game sales and a weaker yen.

Entertainment is one of the fastest-growing sectors, with companies such as Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. investing heavily in content creation.

Sony's chip business, which has a large market share in image sensor components used in smartphone cameras, is also becoming increasingly important as demand booms for chips to be used in high-performance phones and the automotive sector.

"Many of the rivals we are competing with are extremely large global companies," Totoki said. "As we grow bigger, we have to raise the level of our investment accordingly," he said, adding mergers and acquisitions are an option for further growth.

==Kyodo

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