Nintendo Projects Profit Drop on Weaker Switch Sales

By Kosaku Narioka

Nintendo is guiding for a fall in net profit for the fiscal year started in April, on expectations of weaker sales of Switch consoles and software.

The Japanese videogame maker said Tuesday that it expects net profit to drop 39% to 300.00 billion yen ($1.95 billion) and revenue to fall 19% to Y1.350 trillion for the fiscal year that started on April 1.

Nintendo expects to sell 13.5 million Switch consoles this fiscal year, down from the 15.7 million units it sold the previous fiscal year.

The videogame industry is struggling to regain its vigor following a pandemic-driven boom a few years ago. Earlier this year, Sony Group laid off about 900 employees from its PlayStation business. Microsoft cut about 8% of its videogaming staff following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October.

Nintendo has been taking steps to diversify its income streams, using its popular characters and game series in movies and other forms of entertainment outside the videogame space.

For the fiscal year ended March, net profit increased 13% to Y490.60 billion. That beat the estimate of Y458.12 billion compiled in a poll of analysts by data provider FactSet.

Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 07, 2024 03:09 ET (07:09 GMT)

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