Nintendo cuts Wii U sales forecasts despite profits increase
Nintendo now expects to sell 4m Wii U units by the end of the current financial year. That’s down from its previous 5.5m unit sales forecast.
It has also lowered its projected 3DS sales from 17.5m to 15m units.
The company also revealed that lifetime Wii U sales now stand at 3.06m units. 3DS sales have reached 29.84m units. Software sales for the two consoles stand at 11.69m and 84.99m units respectively.
The numbers show that sales of the Wii U outside of Japan and America have hit 900k. Japanese sales stand at 830k whilst American sales have hit 1.32m
A host of other forecasts have also been cut for the financial year ending March 31st 2013. Predicted net sales have been cut ¥140,000m to ¥670,000m. Operating income expectations have been lowered ¥40,000m to a ¥20,000m loss although net income expectations have climbed ¥10,000m to ¥20,000m.
Nintendo said these modifications “reflect a lower-than-expected sales outlook based on the sales performance in the year-end sales season and afterwards.
For the three months ending December 31st Nintendo enjoyed higher than expected sales of 3DS hardware and software, up 11 per cent and 41 per cent year-on-year. However, these gains were not enough to compensate for sharp declines in Wii and DS sales.
If nothing else though, the company has at least returned to profitability.
Net sales for the period reached ¥543,033m, down from ¥556,166m in the same period a year before. Operating losses fell from ¥16,408m last year to ¥5,857m.
Last year’s ¥48,351 net loss has been reversed to a ¥14,545m profit.
The company claims to have a “cavalcade of strong, fan-favourite software titles for both Wii U and 3DS” on the way in 2013 that “will help Nintendo regain momentum for Wii U”.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ninte...crease/0110086
