On Thursday, Nintendo will report its earnings for the fiscal year ended March 31st, and for the first time since 2004, its profit is expected to be lower than the previous year’s.
The company says it expects a profit of 230 billion yen ($2.42 billion USD), down from their record fiscal 2009 where the company made 279 billion yen ($2.94 million USD).
Nintendo blamed the lowered profits on a strong yen last year, and the price cut on the Wii console last October, from $250 to $200 USD.
Analysts had expected a full fiscal year profit of 229 billion yen.
The company is also expecting to have sold 20 million Wii units and 30 million DS/DSi during the period, but some analysts seem to think they are sandbagging. “We are expecting the results to be better than the company forecasts for the Wii,” notes Yuta Sakurai of Nomura Securities. “Christmas shopping was strong.”
Result for: year end
Sony has reported this week that the company, for the fiscal year ended March 31st, had a loss of $1.04 billion USD, the first time the company has reported a loss since 1995. Perhaps even more notably, the company said it expects a bigger loss in upcoming quarters as sales slide and the Yen grows stronger against the US Dollar.
Revenue for the period also fell 13 percent to $81 billion USD, with the company blaming a number of factors including “the slowdown of the global economy, the appreciation of the yen and the decline in the Japanese stock market.”
The “PlayStation” division saw the biggest slowdown in sales year-on-year, mainly due to the strengthening Yen and a large decrease in sale of the aging PlayStation 2. Revenue in the division fell to $10.7 billion USD. Operating profit losses were cut in half however, to $597 million USD, thanks mostly to large reductions in the cost of manufacturing the PlayStation 3 gaming console.
Over 10 million PS3 units were sold for the year, along with 14 million PSPs and 8 million PS2 units. Software sales exploded for the PS3, up almost 100 percent to 103.7 million units. PSP software sales saw a decline of 10 percent.
For the Q4 2008, Sony reported that the Yen was 13 percent more expensive versus the USD and 30 percent more expensive versus the Euro compared to the fiscal year before it. For the upcoming year, Sony is predicting a $1.26 billion USD loss.
Result for: year end
According to Nielsen SoundScan year-end figures, CD sales fell 20 percent for the year 2008, while digital sales grew 27 percent.
Physical CDs still remain the most profitable media for recorded music, and account for 85 percent of overall album sales.
Over 1 billion digital tracks were sold in 2008, while 362.6 million physical CDs were sold for the year.
Even more disheartening for the record industry is the fact that for the period of September 30th-December 31st, CD sales declined the most. That period is usually the most important time of the year for sales, due to the holidays.
