Nintendo Cuts Full Year Forecast Due to Lower Than Expected 3DS Sales
by William D'Angelo, posted on 24 October 2012 / 6,926 Views
Nintendo had a larger than expected loss for the first six months of the current fiscal year, which ended September 30, 2012. This is due to lower than expected 3DS sales outside of Japan than it had anticipated. As a result, Nintendo has lowered its full year profit predictions to ¥6 billion ($75.2 million), from ¥20 billion ($250.6 million).
For the first six months of the current fiscal year, Nintendo posted revenues of ¥201.0 billion ($2.5 billion), down from ¥215.7 billion ($2.7 billion) a year ago. Despite the lower revenues, losses did decline to ¥28.0 billion ($350.8 million), from ¥70.3 billion ($880.7 million)a year ago.
5.06 million units of the Nintendo 3DS and 19.03 million 3DS games were shipped during the first half of the fiscal year. To compare, 3.07 million units of the 3DS were shipped during the same time period last year. Total shipments reached 22.2 million for the 3DS. Nintendo expects to sell 17.5 million units during the full fiscal year.
Nintendo also mentioned specific software sales. Sales of New Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 have helped the 3DS reach lifetime software sales of 64.45 million.
Despite the declining DS sales Pokemon Black and White 2 has sold 4.26 million units. The DS has sold 0.98 million units, while the Wii has sold 1.32 million units.
"The Company continues to focus on selling Nintendo 3DS during the second half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 and aims to expand its business by launching the Wii U system as the successor of Wii in the year-end sales season in the main regions of the world," reads a statement from the company.
"The earnings forecast has been modified to reflect a yen appreciation stronger than expected at the beginning of the fiscal year, the actual sales result for the six-month period ended September 30, 2012 and a change in the outlook for the following six-month period from October 2012 through March 2013 by reviewing the mix of each hardware and software sales unit forecast."
"During the second half of this fiscal year, the assumed exchange rate of the yen to the U.S. dollar has remained at 80 yen per U.S. dollar, while that of the yen to the euro has been revised from 105 yen to 100 yen per euro."
