Strong DS and Wii sales lead to the Japanese giant reworking its financials...

Nintendo's grip over the console market was again highlighted today, with the announcement that the Japanese giant has upwardly revised its end-of-year expectations.

For the nine-month period ended December 31st 2007, Nintendo saw sales of the DS achieve 24.5 million units, leading to 64.79 million units for the handheld to-date. Worldwide Wii sales for the period achieved 14.29 million units, helping it to exceed 20 million since launch.

The hardware giant's nine-month period saw net sales top a trillion yen, standing at 1.32 trillion yen (£6.37 billion). This compared to 712.59 billion yen (£3.44 billion) for the same period in the previous year.

Strong sales of the Wii and DS led to a significant jump in operating profit for the period, reaching 394.04 billion yen (£1.90 billion) from 167.63 billion yen (£809.42 million) for the nine-month period. As a result, net income saw an equally strong increase, standing at 258.93 billion yen (£1.25 billion), compared to 131.92 billion yen (£636.99 million) in the previous year.

Due to the strong performance, Nintendo has revised its previously announced forecast for the year ended March 31st 2008. Net sales are expected to increase by 5.2%, from 1.55 trillion yen (£7.48 billion) to 1.63 trillion yen (£7.87 billion), compared to end of year net sales of 996.53 billion yen (£4.81 billion) for the 2006 fiscal year. Operating income is forecast to increase by 9.5% compared to the original expectations, from 420.00 billion yen (£2.03 billion) to 460.00 billion yen (£2.22 billion) and in contrast to the 226.02 billion yen (£1.09 billion) recorded in the year ended March 31st 2006. Expected net income of 275.00 billion yen (£1.33 billion) for the full fiscal period remains the same as original expectations.