Rising physical and digital game sales keep Sega Sammy in good health

Sega Sammy has released its financials for the six months ended September 30, and both sales and profits are up at the Japanese entertainment giant. 

Company-wide sales rose by 9.9 percent to 169.5 billion yen ($1.64 billion) while profits leapt from 964 million yen ($9.32 million) to 24.3 billion yen ($235.2 million).

Sega's Entertainment Contents wing, which houses its video game operations, has also been performing well. 

Sales in the division totaled 97.8 billion yen ($946.6 million), a year-over-year increase of 13.8 percent. Operating income also rose exponentially, increasing by 436.8 percent to 9.1 billion yen ($88.1 million).

That upturn in fortunes can be attributed, in part, to growing digital and physical game sales, with Sega raking in 24 billion yen ($232.3 million) from digital games during the first half of the year. 

Physical sales saw the biggest upwards shift, however, generating revenues of 21 billion yen ($203.2 million) -- a year-over-year rise of 58 percent. 

It's a trend Sega expects to continue, thanks to the growing sales of next generation hardware in Europe, the U.S., and Asia.  

Despite those solid performances, Sega has tempered its sales expectations slightly due to launch date revisions within its Pachislot and Pachinko Machines Business, and expects to see sales of 373 billion yen ($3.61 billion), rather than 380 billion ($3.67 billion) by the end of the fiscal year. 

Profits, however, are expected to rise off the back of an improvement in profitability in same area, with Sega now anticipating profits of 30 billion yen ($290.3 million) as opposed to the 10 billion yen ($96.7 million) it predicted back in May.