Nintendo released its financial information for the first three quarters of the fiscal year 2009 (April through December 2008). Sales are up 16.7% from the same period last year, with 1.536 trillion yen in sales ($17.19 billion USD); net profit, however, declined by 17.9% to a "mere" 212 billion yen ($2.37 billion USD). Why the discrepancy? In recent months, the yen has been growing stronger in comparison to other currencies; Nintendo, however, has a lot of money stored in other banks in the form of these other, now-weaker currencies, and thus their holdings have declined by about 200 billion yen ($2.24 billion USD). Nintendo still expects to garner 1.82 trillion yen ($20.36 billion USD) in sales this year, setting another company record.
Units Sold (Hardware)
Nintendo DS
April – December ’08: 9.54 million US, 25.62 million worldwide (1.66 million DSi sold)
Life to date: 31.93 million US, 96.22 million worldwide
Wii
April – December ’08: 9.8 million US, 20.52 million worldwide
Life to date: 20.4 million US, 44.96 million worldwide
Units Sold (Software)
Nintendo DS
April – December ’08: 64.55 million US, 163.78 million worldwide
Life to date: 187.75 million US, 533.38 million worldwide
Wii
April – December ’08: 90.29 million US, 163.78 million worldwide
Life to date: 169.66 million US, 312.22 million worldwide
That seems rather ironic to me, that the strengthening of the yen would cause a $2 billion loss to Nintendo. Looking at their sales, though, it’s hard to feel too sorry for them. Otherwise, it looks like the Wii is selling more games per system than the DS right now; I wonder what that says about the two devices.
