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Nintendo cuts annual profit forecast as Switch sales decline

Nintendo this week cut its operating profit forecast for the year to March 2025 by 10 per cent to 360 billion yen ($2.36 billion), as its ageing Switch console loses steam.

The latest forecast is below analyst estimates of a 391.4 billion yen profit.

The Kyoto-based gaming company sold 4.7 million Switch consoles in the first half of the financial year. That compares with 6.8 million units sold in the same period a year earlier.

Nintendo lowered its full-year sales forecast for the console, which is in its eighth year on the market, by 7 per cent to 12.5 million units. That would be down 20 per cent from actual Switch sales of 15.7 million units a year earlier.

It also revised down its annual software sales forecast by 3 per cent to 160 million units.

“For a platform that is in its 8th year in the market, both hardware and software enjoy stable demand and brisk sales,” Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa told an online press conference.

“But sales so far fell short of our original projections. Taking into consideration their sales in the first half, we revised our forecasts for both hardware and software, and that led to the earnings revision.”

Furukawa said there was no change to Nintendo’s plan to announce a successor to its long-lasting Switch console in the current financial year, but did not go into specifics.

Shares in Nintendo closed down 3.9 per cent ahead of the earnings announcements, underperforming the Nikkei average’s (.N225) 1.1 per cent gain.

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