Nintendo 9-month sales up 17%

But drops its annual forecast again

29 January 2009 14:22 GMT / By Verity Burns

Nintendo has posted its financial results for the 9 month period ending 31 December 2008, and for once, it's almost good news.

Strong sales of both the Wii and DS consoles worldwide has helped the company to achieve a 17% rise in sales on the same period in 2007, up to 1.5 trillion yen (around £11 billion).

Operating profit was also up 27% to 501 billion yen (£3.9 billion).

However, the company's recurring and net profits did fall by 18% in the 9 month period, caused by a revaluation of assets held in other currencies than the yen, which is currently very strong.

For the final 3 month's of the company's business year, Nintendo has revised its forecast slightly.

Its estimate for DS console sales has been revised upwards by 3%, yet sales of its software have been revised down 7% to 193 million units.

Some might say surprisingly, both Wii hardware and software estimates were revised downwards by 3%, taking them to 26.5 million and 193 million units respectively.

Overall, the forecast for the full year financial results due in March were all revised downwards, with revenues expected to hit 1.8 trillion yen (£14.4 billion) - which despite being 9% down on the October 2008 estimate, is still up 8.8% on 2007.

Net profits however, are expected to be hit badly. The final figure has now been estimated at 230 billion yen (£1.7 billion), which is down a third from original forecasts, and down over 10% year-on-year.

Still, at least it's still looking at a profit, which is more than many can say.

Full tags

Biz, Gaming, Results, Nintendo