Sony reported a second-quarter operating profit as strong PlayStation 4 videogame sales helped to offset a fall in smartphone sales. Sony said on Thursday its July-September operating profit came to 88 billion yen ($729 million). In the same quarter last year, it booked a loss of 85.6 billion yen due to impairment charges for the mobile business.

The company said its game and networks business booked a 10 percent rise in operating profit thanks to strong PlayStation 4 software sales. It lifted the full-year profit outlook for the games business to 80 billion yen from a previous 60 billion and boosted the sales outlook for PlayStation 4 videogame consoles to 17.5 million units from 16.5 million.

The devices division, which includes image sensors, reported an operating profit of 32.7 billion yen, up 4.4 billion from a year earlier.

Sony has agreed to acquire Toshiba's image sensor business for an estimated 20 billion yen and take on about 1,100 workers from a company reeling from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal. The Japanese company is hoping that its dominant position in the camera sensor market would help the company offset weaker demand for its mobile phones, TVs and other consumer electronics.

Sony's mobile phone business remained in the red, posting a 20.6 billion yen loss due to heavy competition with other Asian makers.

Sales decreased 15.2% year-on-year (a 17% decrease on a constant currency basis) to 279.2 billion yen (2,327 million U.S. dollars). This decrease was due to a significant decrease in smartphone unit sales resulting from a strategic decision not to pursue scale in orderto improve profitabiliy.