Nintendo Revises Forecasts/DS+Wii Sales News

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.