Sony on Tuesday reported an 18.4% increase in first-quarter operating profit, thanks to a strong performance in the image sensor business.

The electronics firm posted an operating profit of 230.9 billion yen ($2.1 billion) for the April-June quarter, up from 195.01 billion yen a year prior.

Sony is benefitting from sales of more high-end, camera smartphones sold by its OEM partners such as Huawei Technologies, offsetting gaming weakness as its almost six-year old PlayStation 4 console nears the end of its life and the cost to develop a next-generation console rises.

Sales at Sony's Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS) segment were 28.4 bln yen, a 14% increase compared to one year earlier. These are sales of image sensors for mobile products.

Sales of Sony's Game & Network Services segment were 14.6 bln yen, a 3% decrease. Sony mentioned a decrease in contribution from first-party software titles, the impact of foreign exchange rates, a decrease in sales of non-first-party software titles.

On the other hand, Sony said it saw an increase in PlayStation 4 (PS4™) hardware sales as well as in network services sales including sales for PlayStation Plus (PS Plus).

Sales of Sony's Pictures segment reached the 11.0 bln yen, a 6% Y-o-Y increase.