Nintendo Announces Strong Financial Results But Sales & Profit Decline YoY Due to Comparison With Animal Crossing

Today Nintendo announced its quarterly financial results for the fiscal quarter ended on June 30, 2021.

First of all, we learn that Nintendo’s sales declined 9.9% year-on-year, while operating profit dropped by 17.3%.

While the figures dropped, this doesn’t tell the whole story as sales of Switch software and hardware remain “steady” as Nintendo itself mentions. Simply, the past quarter could not compare with last year’s in which the company released Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which was a major driver of business for the console.

Sales of Nintendo Switch hardware dropped by 21.7% year-on-year, and they’re split between 3.31 million
units of Nintendo Switch, and 1.14 million units of Nintendo Switch Lite.

Sales for the normal Nintendo Switch actually grew, while the drop comes from the Nintendo Switch Lite since Nintendo had more inventory to sell last year.

As for software released in the quarter, New Pokémon Snap shipped 2.07 million units in the west (in Japan it was published by The Pokémon Company so those aren’t counted), while Mario Golf: Super Rush shipped 1.34 million units.

Sales of games released before the quarter also continued to be strong, but software unit sales still declined by 10.2% year-on-year due to the comparison with the Animal Crossing behemoth.

If you want to compare, you can read our article dedicated to the previous quarter and an update on Nintendo Switch shipments and estimated sell-through.