Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Nintendo Co. raised its full-year
profit forecast by 26 percent because of higher-than-anticipated
sales of Wii and DS game players, sending shares of the company
to their biggest gain in nine months.
Net income will climb 59 percent to 410 billion yen ($3.8
billion) in the year ending March 31, the Kyoto-based company
said in a statement today. The guidance exceeded the 382.6
billion yen median of 23 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Nintendo, poised to pass Sony Corp. as the world's largest
maker of game players for the first time in at least 13 years,
said sales of its motion-sensing Wii console will rise 42 percent
this year and reversed projections that DS sales will drop.
Before today, the stock had fallen 17 percent since July 30, when
the company left its full-year projections unchanged.
``This is a very big, positive surprise,'' Koichi Takatsuka,
a senior fund manager at United Investments Co. in Tokyo. ``It
looks like Wii and DS are selling well, especially in Europe.''
Nintendo gained 8.4 percent to close at 51,800 yen on the
Osaka Securities Exchange, the most since Nov. 14. The company,
which gets almost 80 percent of revenue from overseas, also said
the weaker yen will help earnings.
On July 31, the stock tumbled by its daily limit of 5,000
yen in Osaka trading after it left its annual projections
unchanged. The 8.2 percent drop was the biggest decline in six
months for a company that had raised its forecast three times in
the previous 12-month period.
Wii, DS Sales
The company today said sales of the Wii, equipped with a
motion-sensing controller that can be swung like a bat, will
probably climb to 26.5 million this year, spurring a 56 percent
increase in sales of software for the console. The company will
probably sell 30.5 million touch-screen DS players, 8.9 percent
higher than its July estimate, helping raise sales of game titles
6.1 percent to 197 million.
Nintendo said it was assuming an exchange rate of 105 yen to
the dollar and 160 yen to the euro for its forecasts, compared
with a previous projection of 100 yen and 155 yen.
The Japanese currency, which had traded at an average of
105.7 to the dollar this year before today, may trade at 108 yen
by the fourth quarter, according to the median of 34 estimates
compiled by Bloomberg.
Nintendo increased its projection for operating profit, or
sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses,
by 23 percent to 650 billion yen. The revenue forecast was
bolstered 11 percent to 2 trillion yen, it said.
Credit : http://www.bloomberg.com/
