Nintendo Lowers Earnings Forecast
1/29/2004 at 7:14 PM
The Japanese gaming giant is in the green, although less so than they originally estimated.
The Associated Press (AP) in an article today announced that Nintendo recorded a profit of 34.5 billion yen ($325.4 million) for the first nine months of the fiscal year, which is April through December. Total sales were 439.5 billion yen ($4.146 billion).
Nintendo had initially predicted 60 billion yen ($566 million) in profit and 550 billion yen ($5.18 billion) in sales through the end of the fiscal year on March 31, 2004. However, the company has now lowered these predictions and has altered the net profit to 54 billion yen ($509.4 million) on sales of 510 billion yen ($4.81 billion) at the end of this fiscal year.
Overall, Nintendo expects a net profit $8.6 million behind their initial projections. Company spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said slow sales in Japan and a shortage of supply during the U.S. 2003 holiday shopping period put the company's full-year sales targets for its game machines beyond reach.
Worldwide GameCube and Game Boy Advance sales during the April-December period were 4.39 million and 15.61 million units, respectively. These numbers are noticeably short of Nintendo's 6 million unit prediction for the GameCube and 20 million unit forecast for the Game Boy Advance.
The AP stated that Nintendo did not offer sales comparisons for the 2002 fiscal year with these 2003 numbers.
