Japan digital entertainment and consumer electronics company Nintendo Co. Ltd. reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter Thursday as its consecutive monthly growth streak initially fueled by the coronavirus continues.
While many others have reported losses as a result of economic disruptions caused by the health crisis Nintendo generated a profit of more than 145 billion yen, or roughly $1.37 billion, in its latest quarter ended June. This represented a 428 percent increase compared with the same period last year.
The company's reported operating profit beat all analysts' expectations. Average analyst forecast for the period had pegged the company's profits at around 62 billion yen only.
Nintendo reported international sales of more than 358 billion yen, or $3.4 billion. This nearly doubled the sales numbers for the same period last year. Most sales were of the company's popular gaming console - the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo sold 5.7 million units worldwide, a 167 percent year-on-year increase.
Analysts said the results indicated users were still actively buying and using the company's video game consoles and game titles months into the pandemic. Most of its success for the past quarters can be attributed to its viral "Animal Crossing" video game series. The company reported it sold more than 10.6 million copies of the latest installment of the series, "Animal Crossing: New Horizons."
Nintendo said in a statement that sales numbers for the video game continued to be strong and its momentum seemed to be growing. It said the new "Animal Crossing" game was its best-selling title for the quarter. Nintendo sold 22.4 million copies of the original installment of the video game. This made it its second best-selling game of all time behind "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" - which sold more than 26.7 million copies.
Nintendo has faced some challenges during the past two quarters - mostly related to the lack of supply of its popular Nintendo Switch console. The company reportedly had issues in maintaining a steady supply of the device after some of its factories in China were forced to shut. Component shortages caused by supply chain disruptions resulted in significantly low production outputs throughout the company's international manufacturing facilities.
