Nintendo 2016 fiscal year earnings results
Posted on April 27, 2017 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Switch, Wii U
Nintendo’s latest financial results for the 2016 fiscal year are in. We’ll be rounding up all of the important pieces of information below.
– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild recorded sales of 2.76 million units
– The total units sold including the Wii U version is 3.84 million units
– “1-2-Switch has been generating buzz.”
– Switch hardware: 2.74 million
– Switch software: 5.46 million
– Pokemon Sun/Moon sales: 15.44 million
– Super Mario Maker for 3DS sales: 2.34 million
– Kirby: Planet Robobot – 1.36 million
– Pokemon GO drove 3DS sales outside of Japan
– 3DS sales during this period was 7.27 million units (7% increase on a year-on-year basis)
– 3DS software sales volume reached 55.08 million units (14% increase on a year-on-year basis)
– Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Wii U: 1.08 million units
– Wii U software sales volume during this period was 14.8 million units (46% decrease on a year-on-year basis)
– Wii U hardware decreased to a sales volume of 760 thousand units (77% decrease on a year-on-year basis)
– Super Mario Run “elicited a fantastic response from consumers worldwide”
– Fire Emblem Heroes “is being enjoyed by both long-time fans of the Fire Emblem series and consumers who have never played the series on dedicated video game systems.”
– amiibo: 9.1 million units for figure-type and 9.3 million units for card-type
– Fewer offerings of downloadable content, so digital sales were also down to a large extent on the same period last year
– Operating profit: 489.0 billion yen against net sales of 29.3 billion yen (of which 359.0 billion yen, or
73.4% of the total sales, were overseas sales)
– 50.3 billion yen share of profit of entities accounted for using the equity method related to The Pokémon Company and other investments, resulting in an ordinary profit of 20.2 billion yen
– Due to the sale of the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball, Nintendo recorded gain on sales of investment securities totaling 64.5 billion yen as extraordinary income, meaning that the net profit attributable to owners of
parent was 102.5 billion yen
– Targeting 10 million hardware units for Switch for the next year
– Targeting 35 million software units for Switch for the next year
Regarding Nintendo Switch, we will maintain buzz about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch, which are off to a phenomenal start, and release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in April and ARMS in June worldwide. We will release Splatoon 2 in July. Splatoon 2 exemplifies the concept of Nintendo Switch, enabling consumers to play anywhere, anytime, and with anyone, and will bring competition between consumers to new levels of excitement. In addition, we will maintain favorable conditions surrounding Nintendo Switch by providing a continuous stream of appealing third-party titles across varying genres. We aim to stimulate the platform and expand sales going into the holiday season this year.
Total sales volume for the Nintendo 3DS hardware worldwide has surpassed 66 million units and it has developed into a platform that we can rely on for software sales.
We will release Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia overseas in May (April in Japan) and plan to release Ever Oasis and Hey! Pikmin in June and July. Furthermore, this year is Kirby’s 25th anniversary, so we are planning to release downloadable titles and a new multiplayer action game for Nintendo 3DS. Third-party developers have also announced major titles for Nintendo 3DS. During this period we will continue striving to maintain the momentum of the platform and to reach a broader audience, including females and children, across the world.
In the smart-device business, we released three game applications during this period, each with different playstyles and profit models. We were able to present opportunities for consumers who had never played Nintendo games before and those who live in regions we had previously been unable to reach to experience Nintendo’s intellectual property (Nintendo IP) and the different worlds featured in Nintendo games. Going forward we will endeavor to expand our smart-device business by making use of the experience we have gained so far to provide new game applications, while also focusing on continued operations for our released applications so that consumers can enjoy playing them for a long time.
Based on these efforts, we project a net sales of 750.0 billion yen, an operating profit of 65.0 billion yen, an ordinary profit of 60.0 billion yen and a net profit attributable to owners of parent of 45.0 billion yen. Unit sales of the major products used for the forecast are listed on page 15 under the heading of “(4) Consolidated sales units, number of new titles, and sales units forecast” in the “Others” section. Exchange rate assumptions for the major currencies used for the forecasts are 105 yen per US dollar and 115 yen per euro.
