Nintendo Profits Up 48% To $2.5 Billion In Full Year Results

Officials from Nintendo have released details of the company’s full year results, for the period ended March 31st, 2008. During the last twelve months the company has seen revenues rise by 73 percent and profits up by 48 percent. Sales were up by 73.0 percent over the last twelve months to a total of ¥1.67 trillion ($16.1bn), and profits up 47.7 percent to ¥257.3 billion ($2.5bn). The company described Nintendo DS sales worldwide as “robust” with a total or 30.31 million units sold for a life-to-date total of 70.6 million. Key title Pokemon Diamond/Pearl has sold 9.56 million units worldwide during the year, for a 14.77 million lifetime total. Combined sales of both Brain Training (aka Brain Age) games sold 11.81 million units for a total of 23.81 million. The total number of million selling titles for the format increased from 30 to 57 over the course of the year. In the case of the Wii, a total of 18.61 million consoles were sold worldwide for a lifetime total of 24.45 million. Currently only released in Japan, Wii Fit has already sold a total of 1.85 million units. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has sold 4.85 million units in the U.S. and Japan (a European release date was announced today of June 27th). The number of million selling titles for the Wii increased from 5 to 26 during the last twelve months. Overall the Japanese division of the company saw sales of ¥1.43 trillion ($13.7bn), while Nintendo of America reported sales of ¥662.2 billion ($6.4bn). Nintendo of Europe’s sales were only slightly less at ¥620.4 billion ($6.0bn). Despite these figures, the ratio of overseas sales for the company rose from 66.5 percent to 80.6 percent. As a result, the ever increasing importance of the company’s export market is expected to adversely affect the company’s results in the current financial year. With the rising price of the yen and falling dollar resulting in expected foreign exchange losses of around ¥12 billion ($115m), Nintendo has conservatively predicted sales of ¥1.80 trillion ($17.3bn) and profits of ¥325 billion ($3.1bn) in the coming fiscal year.