Nintendo Reports BIG Third Quarter, as Usual

NINTENDO REPORTS THIRD QUARTER FINANCIALS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009

Global Sales Mark 17% Growth Over Previous Year

Jan. 28, 2009

Despite nearly unprecedented strength of the yen against major foreign currencies, Nintendo Co., Ltd. on Thursday (Japan time) reported 9-month (April to December 2008) global sales of 1,536 billion yen, an increase of nearly 17% over the same period in 2007, along with 501 billion yen of operating profits, up 27% from a year ago. This marks the fourth consecutive year that Nintendo Co., Ltd. has exceeded the previous results for the same nine month period. At the same time, recurring and net profits for the same nine month periods each declined about 18% due to 174 billion yen of foreign currency reevaluation losses from assets held in currencies other than Japanese yen (such as bank deposits without forward exchange contracts).

Click to Keep Reading...

For the full fiscal year ending March 31, 2009, the company revised its unit sales forecast for the portable Nintendo DS™ system upward by 3% to 31.5 million globally, while the DS software forecast was lowered by 7% to 193 million. For the Wii™ system, with softness in the Japanese consumer market, full year global unit sales estimates for both hardware and software were revised downward by 3%, to 26.5 million systems and 193 million games, respectively, in spite of the overall robust sales outside Japan.

As a result, and with the changes in the anticipated foreign currency exchange ratios, Nintendo Co., Ltd. has revised estimates for fiscal sales and profit projections for the full year ending March 31, 2009. However, the company remained on pace to set historic records for Net Sales and Operating Profit for the full 12 month period.

Other highlights announced by Nintendo today include the following cumulative shipment figures from launch through the end of December 2008:

• Total LTD shipments of Nintendo DS hardware were 96.22 million worldwide, along with more than 533 million games.
• Total LTD Wii shipments reached nearly 45 million worldwide, along with over 312 million games.
• The LTD shipment of Wii Fit™ reached 14 million, and Mario Kart™ Wii reached 13.67 million.

Source: Nintendo Press Release