Nintendo reports five-fold profit jump as Animal Crossing sales top 22 mn

By Sam Nussey

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Nintendo Co Ltd on Thursday reported a more than five-fold jump in quarterly profit, driven by breakout demand for its Switch device and hit title "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" as the coronavirus lockdown lifts the games industry.

Nintendo has proved a winner of the pandemic as stuck-at-home gamers flock to titles like "Animal Crossing", which sold 10.6 million units in the first quarter, bringing its total sales to 22.4 million since launching in March.

Operating profit for April-June was 144.7 billion yen ($1.37 billion). That compared with an average estimate of 71 billion yen from 12 analysts polled by Refinitiv SmartEstimate.

Nintendo sold 5.7 million Switch units in the first quarter, composed of 3 million of its hybrid home/portable Switch console plus 2.6 million units of the portable-only Switch Lite, which went on sale last September.

"The numbers are even more impressive when you consider that throughout the entire quarter, the Switch was hard to get in all major markets," said Serkan Toto, founder of game industry consultancy Kantan Games.

The Kyoto-based gaming firm maintained its sales forecast of 19 million Switch units in the current financial year. Chief Executive Shuntaro Furukawa has said previously the boost from the coronavirus is transitory.

The pipeline for Switch games is unusually bare. Nintendo said on Thursday it would release an enhanced version of "Pikmin 3", originally released for predecessor console Wii U.

GRAPHIC: Switch quarterly and total top sellers https://tmsnrt.rs/31sdfza

Nintendo sold 56% of its games digitally in the first quarter compared to 38% a year earlier, boosting profit margins.

The pandemic has impacted Nintendo's real world plans, with Comcast Corp's Osaka-based theme park Universal Studios Japan pushing back the opening of a Nintendo-themed land.

Rival Sony Corp on Tuesday posted a sharp rise in software sales for its aging PlayStation 4 console aided by titles like system exclusive "The Last Of Us Part II", released in June.

 

($1 = 105.4600 yen)

 

(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Edmund Blair and Christopher Cushing)