As part of its quarterly earnings report today, Nintendo slashed its earnings forecast for the full year ending March 31, 2012 and also cut shipment forecasts for 3DS and Wii hardware and software.
The company had previously forecast (on October 27, 2011) sales of 790,000 million yen, operating income of 1,000 million yen, and a net loss of 20,000 million yen. It now expects sales of 660,000 million yen, an operating loss of 45,000 million yen, and a net loss of 65,000 million yen.
Reasons for the changes include stronger-than-expected yen appreciation and lowered unit sales forecasts.
Lower Hardware Forecasts
Among the lowered sales forecasts are a drop in 3DS targets from the previously announced 16 million units to 14 million units. Wii is now expected to sell 10 million units, down from the previous forecast of 12 million units.
While Wii software sales forecasts remain unchanged at 100 million units, Nintendo lowered its 3DS software sales forecasts from 50 million to 38 million units.
Nintendo also lowered DS targets. DS hardware is expected to sell 5.5 million units, down from the previous target of 6 million. DS software is expected to sell 59 million units, down from the previous 62 million forecast.
Q3 Results
For the nine month period ending December 2011, which includes the all important holiday season, Nintendo saw net sales of 556,166 million yen, down from the 807,990 million yen for the same nine month period in 2010. Last year's operating income of 158,795 million yen and net income of 49,557 million yen turned to an operating loss of 16,408 million yen and a net loss of 48,351 million yen.
Contributing to the increased losses for the period were price drops for 3DS and Wii. The high yen was once again a major issue for Nintendo, as 78.3% of Nintendo's sales for the nine month period came from outside of Japan. Exchange losses totaled 53.7 billion yen.
3DS sold 11.43 million units over the nine month period, bringing total worldwide sales to 15.03 million units. Wii sold 8.96 million units, a drop from the 13.72 million units the year prior, bringing its life to date total to 94.97 million units. DS sold 4.64 million units, a drop from the 15.7 million units the year prior, bringing its life to date total to 151.06 million units.
In software, Nintendo noted that Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 became million sellers. They were joined by a third party million seller as well (Nintendo's earnings report did not mention the game, but it's Monster Hunter 3G). Zelda Skyward Sword had strong sales, particularly in America.
http://andriasang.co...tendo_earnings/
Old consoles not selling well and stronger Yen, on the bright side 3DS has over 15 Million WW sales now.
