Nintendo Financial Results – Nine Months Ended December 31st, 2018 (April 1st – December 31st)
Today, the Nintendo financial results for the Nine Months Ended September 30th, 2018 were revealed.
Nintendo Financial Results – Raw Data
Let’s start with some raw data:
Nintendo Financial Results – Hardware / Software Sales
- Nintendo 3DS: 2 310 000 units for Fiscal Year / 1 310 000 units for Q3 2018-19 / 74.84 million units since launch;
- Nintendo 3DS (Software): 11.08 million units for Fiscal Year (35 new games launched in all regions*) / 4.854 million units during Q3 2018-19 / 371.116 million units since launch (1 704 games launched*)
- Nintendo Switch: 14 490 000 units for Fiscal Year / 9 420 000 units for Q3 2018-19 / 32 270 000 since launch
- Nintendo Switch (Sofware): 94.64 million units for Fiscal Year (579 games launched in all regions*) / 52.51 million units units for Q3 2018-19 / 163.610 million units since launch (877 games launched*)
* games released in more than one region are counted several times (example: 1 game in 3 regions: counted 3 times). Only games released at retail.
Here’s some details about Nintendo 3DS sales:
- New Nintendo 3DS XL – 12 220 000 (+ 210 000 units for Fiscal Year, 90 000 units for Q3 2018-19)
- Nintendo 2DS – 10 220 000 – 9 680 000 (+ 830 000 units for Fiscal Year, +540 000 units for Q3 2018-19)
- New Nintendo 2DS XL — 4 010 000 – 3.32 million units (+1 100 000 units for Fiscal Year, 690 000 units for Q3 2018-19)
Nintendo Financial Results – Forecast comparison
Here’s Nintendo’s forecast for the current Fiscal Year:
- Net sales: 1 200 billion Yen (+ 145 billion Yen compared to FY 2017-18)
- Net sales (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 997 295 million Yen (202.705 million Yen left)
- Operating profit: 225 billion Yen (+ 48 billion Yen compared to FY 2017-18)
- Operating profit (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 220 029 million Yen (4 971 million Yen left)
- Ordinary profit: 230 billion Yen (+ 31 billion Yen compared to FY 2017-18)
- Ordinary profit (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 240 268 million Yen (140 268 million Yen above forecast)
- Net profit attributable to owners of parent: 165 billion Yen (+26 billion Yen compared to FY 2017-18)
- Net profit attributable to owners of parent (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 168 785 million Yen (3 785 million Yen above forecast)
As for the Nintendo 3DS, and the Nintendo Switch specifically:
- Nintendo 3DS: 4 million units (- 2.4 million units compared to FY 2017-18)
- Nintendo 3DS (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 2 310 000 units (1 690 000 units left)
- Nintendo 3DS Software: 16 million units (-19.64 million units compared to FY 2017-18)
- Nintendo 3DS Software (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 11.08 million units (5.92 million units left)
- Nintendo Switch: 20 million units (+5.05 million units compared to FY 2017-18)
- Nintendo Switch (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 14.90 million units (5.10 million units left)
- Nintendo Switch Software: 100 million units (+37.49 million units compared to FY 2017-18)
- Nintendo Switch Software (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 94.64 million units (5.36 million units left)
In light of Q3 2018-19 sales, Nintendo decided to revise its sales forecast, but only for the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch.
Here’s the revised forecast:
- Nintendo 3DS: 2.6 million units (- 1.4 million units compared to initial forecast)
- Nintendo 3DS (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 2 310 000 units (290 000 units left)
- Nintendo 3DS Software: 13 million units (-3 million units compared to initial forecast)
- Nintendo 3DS Software (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 11.08 million units (1.92 million units left)
- Nintendo Switch: 17 million units (-3 million units compared to initial forecast)
- Nintendo Switch (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 14.90 million units (2.10 million units left)
- Nintendo Switch Software: 110 million units (+10 million units compared to initial forecast)
- Nintendo Switch Software (actual result as of December 31st 2018): 94.64 million units (15.36 million units left)
Nintendo Financial Results – Nintendo comments
Nintendo Switch
For the nine months ended December 31, 2018, three Nintendo Switch titles became major hits with record sales, which helped invigorate the platform. They are Super Mario Party, released in October, at 5.3 million units, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! released in November, at 10 million units, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate released in December, at 12.08 million units. In addition, sales of other titles and titles released by other software publishers continued to grow steadily, bringing the total number of million-seller titles during this period to 20, including the titles of other software publishers. During the holiday season, software was a great driver of hardware sales, resulting in hardware sales of 14.49 million units (19.5% increase on a year-on-year basis) and software sales of 94.64 million units (100.9% increase on a year-on-year basis).
Nintendo 3DS
Hardware sales of Nintendo 3DS, now in its 8th year since launch, were 2.31 million units sold (60.5% decrease on a year-on-year basis), while 11.08 million software units were sold (64.5% decrease on a year-on-year basis).
NES and SNES Classics
Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition and Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Super NES Classic Edition recorded total sales of 5.83 million units.
Digital sales
Turning to our digital business for dedicated video game platforms, sales of download version of packaged software, download-only software and add-on content for Nintendo Switch showed especially good growth, bringing digital sales to 84.2 billion yen (95.1% increase on a year-on-year basis)
Smart devices
For smart devices, many consumers around the world enjoy Dragalia Lost, which was released during this period, in addition to our previously-released titles. Our smart devices, IP related income was 33.3 billion yen (14.7% increase on a year-on-year basis).
Nintendo Financial Results – Nintendo comments (forecast)
Nintendo Switch
Major software titles slated for release on Nintendo Switch include New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe in January and Yoshi’s Crafted World in March, as well as major titles planned by other software publishers. We aim to broaden the platform’s user base by adding new titles and strengthening sales of popular titles already in the market.
Nintendo 3DS
For Nintendo 3DS, we will continue to leverage the platform’s rich software library and its hardware install base to further expandsales of evergreen titles.
Smart devices
In the smart-device business, Mario Kart Tour was scheduled to be released this fiscal year, but in order to improve quality of the application and expand the content offerings after launch, the release date has been moved to summer 2019. As we endeavor to develop future planned applications, we will also focus on continued service operations for applications that have already been released so that consumers can enjoy playing them for a long time.
