Today Nintendo announced its financial results for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, ended on June 31st, 2017, and they’re definitely solid.
The hardware manufacturer and software publisher from Kyoto ended the quarter with all numbers in the black. Sales are up 148.6% year-on-year, with profit figures definitely improved compared to the negative ones posted for the first quarter of the previous fiscal year.
The press release from Nintendo also included a detailed breakdown of the business’ performance during the quarter. We learn that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe shipped 3.54 million units worldwide, ARMS shipped 1.18 million units, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild now sits on 3.92 million units globally.
The Switch shipped 1.97 million units during the quarter, complemented by 8.14 million software units.
“During the first quarter of this period (April through June 2017), for Nintendo Switch, we released Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in April to favorable response, selling 3.54 million units worldwide. ARMS, released in June, is also off to a good start with 1.18 million units sold globally. In addition, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, released in the previous period, has also continued to perform well,selling 1.16 million units worldwide (3.92 million units on a cumulative basis). Altogether the sales volume for Nintendo Switch hardware and software during this period came to 1.97 million units and 8.14 million units respectively.
For Nintendo 3DS, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia was released in Japan in April and overseas in May and has been a popular title. Hardware sales were 0.95 million units (1% increase on a year-on-year basis) and software sales were 5.85 million units (31% decrease on a year-on-year basis).
As there were few new types of amiibo compared to the same period last year and few new titles offering amiibo functionality, amiibo sales were approximately 1.60 million units for figure-type and approximately 1.30 million units for card-type. In our digital business, sales of the digital versions of packaged software and downloadable content on Nintendo Switch showed steady growth, with total digital sales of 11.0 billion yen (41% increase on a year-on-year basis).For smart devices, many consumers are continuing to enjoy Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, which were released during the previous fiscal year. Our smart device and IP related income was 9.0 billion yen (450% increase on a year-on-year basis).
With this background, we had an operating profit of 16.2 billion yen and an ordinary profit of 30.9 billion yen against net sales of 154.0 billion yen (of which overseas sales were 113.8 billion yen or 73.9% of the total sales). The profit attributable to owners of parent for this quarter was 21.2 billion yen.”
We also get the outlook for the full fiscal year, which shows no substantial update compared to the prediction announced back in April 2017.
“For Nintendo Switch, we are planning worldwide releases for Splatoon 2 in July and Super Mario Odyssey in October, and there are several big titles from other software publishers planned for this period.
For Nintendo 3DS, we are launching New Nintendo 2DS XL across the globe in June and July as a new addition to the hardware lineup. On the software front, we are releasing Hey! Pikmin worldwide in July, and we plan to release Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon in November. There are also strong third-party titles on the way for Nintendo 3DS.
In addition, Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition is a compact recreation of Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which launched in 1990, and it features a collection of 21 titles selected from the rich library of Super NES games. We plan to launch this system globally in September and October.
In our smart device business, we will introduce new game applications while also focusing on continued operations for our released applications so that consumers can enjoy playing them for a long time.
There is no revision to the financial forecast for this period originally published on April 27, 2017.”
In addition to its financial results, Nintendo also provided a comprehensive update of shipments for its consoles. If you want to compare today’s results with the previous report, related to the fiscal year ended on March 31st, 2017 and published in April, you can find them here.