To say that Nintendo has been doing well for themselves would be something of an understatement. So well, in fact, that if you took a time machine back to the beginning of the century and told someone, they’d probably just call you “butthead” and make fun of your life preserver.
Nonetheless, their progress has been nothing short of impressive– even to those of us in the present. Details of the company’s nine-month performance which ended on December 31st have shown net sales have increased by 84.7 percent over the same period last year.
Even though the company has had difficulty keeping the Wii in stock (and to a lesser degree, the DS), net sales rose to $12.36 billion in the past nine months, with operating income growing to $3.69 billion, an increase of 135.1%. In addition, net income has risen by 96.3% to 2.42 billion.
As a result of this, coupled with the continued strong demand, Nintendo has raised its sales forecast for the full year to $15.27 billion, just as Michael Pachter predicted. The net income prediction remains at $2.58 billion.
Want to know how that breaks down into units sold? Well, glad you asked…
The Nintendo DS has moved 64.79 million units all around the world, from Kiev to Carolina (well, maybe not Kiev). It makes for a fairly even three-way split, with 21.66 million going to Japan, 20.18 million in North and South America, and 22.94 million… well, everywhere else. Ok, maybe not that even.
Of course, the hardware is no good without the software, and they aren’t hurting there, either. 330.87 million in Japan, 109.16 million in North and South America, and 113.25 million sold in the rest of the world. On average, that makes the attach rate about 1:5.1 worldwide.
As for the Wii, the hardware units sold is totaled at 20.13 million worldwide, with 4.99 million moved in Japan, 8.85 million in the New World, and 6.30 million to the rest.
This is where it gets interesting. Things have been pretty well balanced so far, save for more Wii units in North and South America by a couple million. Here’s how the software sales break down from 113.19 million worldwide: 16.83 million in Japan, 60.90 million in the Americas, and 35.46 million everywhere else.
This makes the worldwide attach rate 1:5.6, more than the DS, but including the packed-in Wii Sports for the West.
Worldwide sales for the DS over the aforementioned nine month period were 24.5 million units, the most popular software being The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Mario Party DS, Pokemon Pearl/Diamond and Brain Age 2. For the Wii, they moved 14.29 million consoles in that period, with Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Party 8 being their bread and butter.
