Sony has certain financial instruments including financial assets and liabilities acquired in the normal course of business. Such financial instruments are exposed to market risk arising from the changes in foreign currency exchange rates, interest rates and stock prices. In applying a consistent risk management strategy for the purpose of reducing such risk, Sony uses derivative financial instruments, which include foreign exchange forward contracts, swap agreements, option contracts, and interest rate swap agreements (including interest rate and currency swap agreements). Certain other derivative financial instruments are entered into in the Financial Services segment for ALM purposes. These instruments are executed with creditworthy financial institutions, and virtually all foreign currency contracts are denominated in U.S. dollars, euros and other currencies of major countries. Other than derivatives utilized in the Financial Services segment for ALM, Sony does not use derivative financial instruments for trading or speculative purposes. These derivative transactions utilized for ALM in the Financial Services segment are executed within certain limits in accordance with an internal risk management policy.

A description of the purpose and classification of the derivative financial instruments held by Sony is as follows:

Foreign exchange forward contracts, swap agreements and purchased and written foreign currency option contracts are utilized primarily to limit the exposure affected by changes in foreign currency exchange rates on cash flows generated or anticipated by Sony’s transactions and accounts receivable and payable denominated in foreign currencies. The majority of written foreign currency option contracts expire in the same month as the corresponding purchased foreign currency option contracts.

Sony also entered into foreign exchange forward contracts and foreign currency option contracts which effectively fixed the cash flows from certain forecasted purchase and sale transactions denominated in foreign currencies for the fiscal years ended March 31, 2023, 2024 and 2025. The ineffective portions of the hedging relationships were not significant. Accordingly, these derivatives have been designated as cash flow hedges.

Foreign exchange forward contracts and foreign currency option contracts that do not qualify as hedges are measured at fair value with changes in value recognized in financial income and financial expenses.

Foreign exchange forward contracts, foreign currency option contracts and swap agreements held by certain subsidiaries in the Financial Services segment are measured at fair value with changes in value recognized in financial services revenue.

Certain subsidiaries in the Financial Services segment have equity future contracts, equity swap agreements, bond future contracts, interest rate swaption agreements and other currency contracts as part of their ALM, which are with changes in value recognized in financial services revenue. Certain bond futures contracts are used as hedging instruments in fair value hedges to reduce the risk of fluctuations in the fair value of fixed rate bonds due to changes in market interest rates. The ineffectiveness of the hedging relationship was not significant for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025. In addition, the hybrid financial instruments, disclosed in Note 5 as debt securities, contained embedded derivatives that are not required to be bifurcated because the entire instruments are measured at fair value.