July 31, 2019 – Nintendo Co. said today its group net profit in the April to June quarter fell 45.7 percent from a year earlier to 16.6 billion yen ($153 million) due to foreign exchange losses and declining sales of Nintendo 3DS game consoles and software despite stronger sales of the Switch units.
Operating profit fell 10.2 percent to 27.43 billion yen for the first quarter of the business year ending next March on sales of 172.11 billion yen, up 2.4 percent, the video game maker said.
The Kyoto-based company left unchanged its full-year earnings forecasts, expecting a net profit of 180 billion yen, down 7.2 percent, and operating profit of 260 billion yen, up 4.1 percent, on sales of 1.25 trillion yen, up 4.1 percent.
The company booked a 12.1 billion yen foreign exchange loss during the quarter, it said. In the same period a year earlier, Nintendo posted an exchange profit of 7.5 billion yen.
The Nintendo 3DS handheld console, launched in 2010, saw a 44.9 percent drop in sales to about 20,000 units in the reporting period.
As for its newer Switch console, sales grew 13.2 percent from a year earlier to 2.13 million units, with its software sales also showing strong growth.
The company maintained its Switch sales forecast at 18 million units for the year through next March, including a smaller version to be introduced later in the year.
The company will launch the smaller and cheaper Switch Lite in September. It is also scheduled to release the Switch in China by teaming up with the country’s largest video game publisher Tencent Holdings Ltd.