Nintendo earnings get a bump from Zelda and Super Mario Bros. Movie

Nintendo reported sales and profit figures above expectations for its second fiscal quarter ended September 30.

The Japanese video game company said it continues to benefit from sales related to The Super Mario Bros. Movie released in April and its flagship The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game released in May. The movie has generated $1.36 billion in revenues to date at the box office.

Nintendo said it sold 6.84 million Switch consoles in the April to September period, up 2.4% year-on-year. The company is keeping its forecast of selling 15 million Switch hardware units through the end of the fiscal year in March 2024.

Nintendo also raised its sales and profit forecast for its current fiscal year. On revenue, Nintendo reported 334.9 billion Japanese yen ($2.2 billion) versus 317.3 billion yen expected. The net profit was 90.3 billion yen compared to 75.7 billion yen expected. Compared to a year ago, Nintendo’s revenue fell 4% year-on-year and its profit dropped 19%.

For the six month period of April to September, Nintendo reported a 21.2% year-on-year rise in revenue to 796.2 billion yen. Net profit was 271.2 billion yen, up 17.7%.

“Sales in the first half of the fiscal year were the largest since the launch of Nintendo Switch,” Nintendo said in a statement.

Thanks to the big boost in the past six months, Nintendo raised its full-year forecasts. The company said net sales for its March 2024 year end would be 1.58 trillion yen, up from a previous forecast of 1.45 trillion. Nintendo said net profit will be 420 billion yen, up from the prior forecast of 340 billion yen.

Rumors are strong that Nintendo will launch a new console to replace the Switch, which was introduced in 2017, in 2024. But Nintendo dropped no hints of that happening.

Nintendo reported that its cumulative sales of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, has hit 19.5 million copies sold.

Meanwhile, Pikmin 4, released in July, has sold 2.61 million copies. The April release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie positively impacted sales of Mario titles, such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which sold 3.22 million copies during the quarter (for a total cumulative sales of 57.01 million).

Nintendo Switch sales increased 2.4% to 6.84 million units in the quarter, and overall software sales grew 1.8% to 97.08 million copies.

Nintendo said digital sales of Switch software sold well, with total digital sales hitting 217.5 billion yen, up 15.8% from a year ago. In the mobile and IP-related business, sales totaled 55.0 billion yen, up 133.3% year-on-year, bolstered mainly by the generation of revenue related to The Super Mario Bros. Movie.