Strong Cube boosts Nintendo profits, but sales targets may be missed

Nintendo has announced a selection of financial figures for the nine months ended December 31, revealing that rising GameCube sales have helped the company's operating profits to top 103 billion Yen (â'¬786 million).

Once other accounting factors (including the weak dollar, which continues to plague Nintendo's financials) are brought into consideration, the platform holder reports a net profit for the nine month period of 34.6 billion Yen (â'¬264 million).

The overall sales figure for the period was 439.6 billion Yen (â'¬3.6 billion), around 80 per cent of the company's target for the full year to March, which was set at 510 billion Yen (â'¬3.9 billion) last November. The operating profit figure meanwhile is at 89 per cent of the full year target of 115 billion Yen (â'¬878 million).

These are remarkably healthy financials for a company which was criticised heavily by analysts and media alike last year, after recording the first loss in its lengthy corporate history - a loss largely attributed to currency market fluctuations, but which was taken as a sign of weakness in the key home console business by many commentators.

Strong sales of the GameCube, which boosted its year on year figures by some 70 per cent in the last quarter of calendar 2003, contributed heavily to these new figures, with Nintendo still profiting from the console despite aggressive price cutting in all global territories late in the year.

GameCube sales for the nine-month period stood at 4.39 million units, which falls somewhat short of the six million target set for the end of March - a target which Nintendo now expects to miss by about a million units, contradicting statements made recently by president Satoru Iwata, who said that he expected to meet the six million unit target.

The Game Boy Advance, meanwhile, continues to sell strongly - although it too seems likely to miss its full-year sales target, with 15.61 million GBA units sold in the nine months to December, and the full year target of 20 million liable to be missed by two million units.

However, despite the lower expectations for hardware sales, Nintendo has not revised its financial projections downwards, and apparently still expects to meet those figures.