Today Nintendo announced its financial results for the nine months ended on December 31, 2019, providing interesting information about its gaming business.
As you can see in the table below, all the relevant profit figures are in the black.
They also showcase a sizable improvement compared to the same period last year.
Nintendo also updated its outlook for the full fiscal year, with a relevant increase for the profit forecasts. This isn’t surprising considering that the company also increased its shipments prediction for the Switch by 1.5 million units.
We also get a detailed overview of the results. We learn that the Pokemon Sword & Shield shipped a whopping 16.06 million units, while both Super Mario Maker 2 and Luigi’s Mansion 3 passed 5 million units each.
Income related to mobile games also grew 10.6% year-on-year.
During the nine months ended December 31, 2019, Nintendo Switch Lite launched in September as a compact, lightweight, and easy-to-carry system dedicated to handheld gameplay, and Nintendo Switch performed well without losing momentum, resulting in significant sales growth for the entire Nintendo Switch family that surpassed the same period in the last fiscal year.
Software like Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield became huge hits, selling 16.06 million units, alongside Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Super Mario Maker 2, both of which sold over 5 million units.
In addition, sales of popular titles released during previous fiscal years and titles from other software publishers continued to grow steadily, bringing the total number of million-seller titles during this fiscal year to 21, including the titles of other software publishers.
Nintendo Switch also launched in China through Tencent Holdings Limited in December. As a result, hardware sales reached 17.74 million units (22.5% increase on a year-on-year basis), and software sales reached 123.13 million units (30.1% increase on a year-on-year basis).
For Nintendo 3DS, hardware sales totaled 0.62 million units (73.0% decrease on a year-on-year basis), while software sales totaled
4.10 million units (63.0% decrease on a year-on-year basis).Turning to our digital business for dedicated video game platforms, the steady growth in sales of downloadable versions of packaged software and download-only software for Nintendo Switch, as well as the contribution from Nintendo Switch Online throughout the entire fiscal year, helped to bring overall digital sales to 124.9 billion yen (48.3% increase on a year-on-year basis).
For the mobile business, many consumers continue to enjoy applications released during this fiscal year, such as Mario Kart Tour, as well as titles that were released in previous fiscal years. Our mobile, IP related income reached 36.9 billion yen (10.6% increase on a year-on-year basis).
Lastly, we get an explanation of the forecast for the full fiscal year, which ends on March 31.
Regarding Nintendo Switch, we will continue to convey the appeal of both the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite hardware, and work to expand their installed base.
In addition to Nintendo-published titles like Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (January), Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX (March) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (March), there are also a robust variety of appealing titles from other software publishers scheduled to be released.
We will work to keep the platform energized by continuously introducing attractive new titles in addition to the popular titles already released. For our mobile business, operations will focus on encouraging more consumers to continue to enjoy playing applications released this
fiscal year like Mario Kart Tour, as well as the ones that were released in previous fiscal years.
If you’d like to compare, you can take a look at the previous results revealed by Nintendo in October.
