Namco Bandai swings to ¥1.8 billion profit

Namco Bandai has announced its full year financial results for the 12 months ending March 31st, with sales rising by 4.1 per cent to ¥394.1 billion ($4.88bn / €3.40bn) on a net profit of ¥1.8 billion ($22.3m / €15.5m).

The results are an improvement on last year, when the company posted net losses ¥29.9 billion ($370.4m / €257.8m). Operating income was up by a massive 767.3 per cent to ¥16.3 billion ($201.9m / €140.5m).

Although Namco Bandai has not offered an English language commentary on the results, their published data reveals that video game sales, including home and arcade, were static at ¥179.9 billion ($2.23bn / €1.55bn), but in line with expectations.

However, operating profits for the division were up 201 per cent to ¥3.1 billion ($38.4m / €26.7m). Although sales for the two divisions are similar the company's most profitable area continues to be Toys and Hobby - a legacy of Bandai rather than Namco - with an operating profit of ¥13.8 billion ($171m / €119m).

Japan remains by far the most important region for the company overall, with ¥312.4 billion ($3.87bn / €2.69bn) sales and operating income of ¥23.6 billion ($292.3m / €203.5m). North and South American sales stood at just ¥28.0 billion ($346.9m / €241.5m), with an operating loss of ¥5.7 billion ($70.6m / €49.2m). European sales were ¥37.0 billion ($458.3m / €319.1m) with an operating loss of ¥1.2 billion ($14.9m / €10.3m).

Home and portable game sales specifically saw less regional variation though, with 9.5 million unit sales in Japan, 6.5 million in the U.S. and 5 million in Europe.

2009's Tekken 6 continued to be the company's best seller throughout 2010, with 1.2 million sales. Licensed games Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien were the next highest performers on 1.1 million and 0.8 million, respectively.

Enslaved: Odyssey To The West, by UK developer Ninja Theory sold 730,000 units - still short of the 1 million hoped for by Namco prior to its release.

For the current financial year Namco Bandai is predicting a modest 1.5 per cent increase in sales to ¥400 billion ($4.96bn/€3.45bn), but a massive 332.8 per cent increase in net profits to ¥8 billion ($99.1m/€69.0m).