Nintendo Shares Surge As Forecasts Are Raised

Nintendo has increased its full year profit forecast by 26 percent, resulting in the company’s biggest increase in share price for nine months. Higher than expected sales of the Wii and Nintendo DS are the cause. The company now believes that sales of Wii hardware will increase by 42 percent over the course of the year, to around 26.5 million. Software sales are expected to increase by 56 percent to 186 million units. The Nintendo DS is also no longer expected to show a decrease over the previous year, with a total of 30.5 million unit sales predicted -- an 8.9 percent increase on previous estimates. Software sales are expected to hit 197 million units. The company now reckons that it will see a 59 percent increase in net income to ¥410 billion ($3.8bn) for the year ending March 31st, 2009. A weak yen and strong sales in Europe have also seen revenue forecasts increased by 11 percent to ¥2 trillion ($18.4bn). According to a Bloomberg report, Nintendo’s market capitalization now stands at $67 billion -- 72 percent more than Sony. Share prices have tripled since Satoru Iwata took over as president in 2002, although they did dip when Nintendo failed to increase its full-year predictions earlier in the year.