Nintendo Q3, 61 percent drop in profit, guidance slashed

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Nintendo Q3, 61 percent drop in profit, guidance slashed

in 07:27 GMT , By الصحة الاول

Nintendo Co Ltd posted a 61 percent drop in quarterly operating profit on Thursday and forecast a 45 billion yen ($580 million) operating loss for the year to March, far worse than market expectations, hit by weak sales and the strong yen.

The full-year operating loss will be the first since the company started announcing earnings in their current form in 1981. The company blamed yen strength and weaker-than-expected sales.

The creator of the Super Mario franchise dominated the video games industry for years with its DS handheld players and Wii home consoles, but is now struggling to keep up with more versatile gadgets like Apple's smartphones and tablets.

It cut its annual forecast for its ageing Wii console to 10 million devices from 12 million, and for the 3DS handheld games device to 14 million from 16 million.

Poor sales forced Nintendo to slash the price of its much-anticipated 3DS handheld games device in August, only six months after its launch.

The move halted its record of making profits on games hardware as well as software, a business model that took operating income to a high of 555 billion yen in 2008/09.

Nintendo also faces harsher competition in the home console market from Sony Corp's Move and Microsoft Corp's Kinect....... Nintendo (PDF)

Source: Reuters