Nintendo: Sales tracking below forecasts, weak yen drives profit
Nintendo reduced its annual sales forecast by 6.8 percent today, leading to a 50 percent drop in the projected operating profit for its core business. Nonetheless, the ever-weakening state of the yen is balancing that out by boosting the company's overseas earnings.
According to its revised forecast, Nintendo now expects to earn a net profit of ¥30 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2015, which converts to around $255 million. That's up 50 percent from the company's previous projections, and a sharp contrast to the $229 million loss posted the previous fiscal year.
In terms of the first three quarters of the fiscal year (April to December 2014), Nintendo posted net sales of ¥442.9 billion ($3.8 billion), down 11.3 percent from the year before. The company expects that figure to reach ¥550 billion ($4.7 billion) by the end of March, no doubt boosted by next month's launch of the New 3DS in North America and Europe.
Meanwhile, Nintendo posted a nine-month net profit of ¥59.5 billion yen ($505 million), up a massive 483.7 percent from the corresponding year's figure.
"We've made some progress in profit but in many ways we didn't score perfectly," is how CEO Satoru Iwata summed things up to Reuters.
We can expect to hear more on Nintendo's financials and how it'll affect things going forward after the company's results briefing. That takes place tomorrow, January 29.
[Image: Nintendo]
