Nintendo Reports Record Profits; Strong Virtual Console Sales

Officials from Nintendo have released financial information for the nine month period ended December 31st, which has seen net sales for the company rise by 72.8 percent, and operating income increase by 102.5 percent. The positive results were helped by the successful worldwide launch of the Wii and continued strong performance of the Nintendo DS. Net profits were up by 43.1 percent to a record ¥131.92 billion ($1.09bn), while sales rose by 72.8 percent to ¥712.59 billion ($5.90bn). A total of nineteen of Nintendo’s own first party software releases sold one million units or over during the period. This includes thirteen Nintendo DS titles, three Game Boy Advance titles and three Wii titles. Software sales on the Nintendo DS were led by New Super Mario Bros. which currently boasts worldwide sales of 8.64 million, followed by Brain Age/Brain Training and Nintendogs. Hardware sales for the Nintendo DS in the last nine months reached 18.88 million worldwide, with 7.53 million sold in Japan, 5.06 million in the Americas and 6.29 million in the rest of the worldwide. The lifetime-to-date total for the console is now put at 35.61 million worldwide, with 14.43 million in Japan, 10.18 million in the Americas and 11.00 million in the rest of the world. The total global installed userbase for the Wii was put at 3.19 million by the end of December, with 1.14 million units sold in Japan, 1.25 million in the Americas and 0.80 million in the rest of the world. Interestingly, the company claims that almost 1.4 million Wii consoles have been connected the Internet as of January 24th, representing approximately 44 percent of all users. The company has also reported around 1.5 million Virtual Console downloads worldwide up to the same date. By comparison, 3.5 million unique users have registered to use the Nintendo DS online, around 10 percent of the total audience. The company has retained its previous forecast for consolidated worldwide shipments of 6 million Wii consoles by the end of the current financial year in March. Nintendo manufactured 4 million Wii consoles by the end of 2006, but had only sold and delivered 3.19 million to distributors and retail customers, presumably due to supply chain inefficiencies.