Nintendo posts another loss, sales down 32%

Nintendo isn’t having the greatest year in terms of earnings. The company has dropped a new earnings release that indicates sales in the nine month period ending on December 31, 2011 were down almost 32 percent when compared to that same period in 2010.

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The earnings release showed sales of 556.2 billion yen ($7.2 billion) in final nine months of 2011. In addition to those numbers, Nintendo posted a 48.4 billion yen (approximately $625 million) net loss. During the comparable period in 2010 the company generated a profit of almost 50 billion yen.

Nintendo did discuss the reasons for the rocky financials in the release. Some of the problem was attributed to sluggish Nintendo 3DS sales during the first half of the fiscal year. That coupled with a strong yen and the “significant” 3DS price cut (from $249 to $169) accounted for the loss.

A loss, while significant, isn’t the only negative thing in this release. The company also saw rapidly declining unit sales for almost all of its products when compared to 2010. Just fewer than 9 million Wii units were sold worldwide between April and December of 2011. In those same months of 2010 Nintendo moved 13.7 million Wii units. DS sales saw a much larger decline, dropping from 15 million in 2010 to 4.6 million in 2011.

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The only positive number in this release is actually the 3DS, which has been seeing strong sales after the price cut. During the nine month period accounted for in the release, the 3DS was able to sell 11.4 million units worldwide. Continued strong sales of the 3DS would give Nintendo at least one platform to rely on moving into 2012. Nintendo has also confirmed that the Wii U would be released in North America, Japan, Europe, and Australia by the end of 2012, which will hopefully bolster the company’s numbers at the end of the year.

Along with these numbers, Nintendo also downgraded their earnings projections for fiscal year 2011 (ending March 31). The previous projection was 790 billion yen, which has been decreased to 660 billion yen. The total loss the company expects to post for the year has been increased from 20 billion yen to 65 billion yen. To put that number into perspective, Nintendo posted a profit of 77.6 billion yen in 2010. Clearly one year can make a very big difference.

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