Nintendo Jumps Most in Six Months After Profit Tops Estimates

(Bloomberg) -- Nintendo Co. rose the most in more than six months after the company reported profit that beat analyst estimates, helped by a boost to software sales from the introduction of the Switch Lite model.

Operating income rose to 66.8 billion yen ($615 million) in the three months ended September, the Kyoto-based company said, more than the 50.5 billion yen average of analyst projections compiled by Bloomberg. Sales were 271.9 billion yen, compared with estimates of 250.8 billion yen. Nintendo shares rose as much as 5.6% on Friday, the biggest intraday gain since April 19.

Nintendo has stuck with earnings projections that are far below analyst estimates despite a strong lineup of games for later this year and expectations for stronger hardware growth. The launch slate includes a new installment in the Zelda saga, Luigi's Mansion and two Pokemon games. The company also reported sales of Switch hardware and software both rose about 50% in the quarter, increasing the likelihood the year-end numbers will beat its own cautious outlook.

“Switch hardware sales beat our expectations as did Switch software,” Jefferies Group senior analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a report. “This beat is impressive as we expected adverse impact from” foreign exchange headwinds and the cost to develop a mobile installment of the Mario Kart franchise.

The company kept its conservative forecast for operating profit of 260 billion yen on 1.25 trillion yen in revenue for the year ending March 2020. That's short of analysts' expectations of 308.1 billion yen and 1.29 trillion yen respectively. The company expects to sell 18 million Switch units and 125 million new software titles this fiscal year.

Nintendo sold 4.8 million units of the Switch hardware in the second quarter, a 50% gain from the same period a year ago. Switch Lite accounted for 1.95 million of that. Sales of software titles rose 48% to 35.9 million units helped by Fire Emblem: Three Houses and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, which contributed 2.29 million and 3.13 million respectively.

“There are still many people to whom we have yet to communicate the appeal of Switch Lite,” President Shuntaro Furukawa said in a briefing in Osaka.

Mobile game revenue was little changed from a year ago, totaling 9.9 billion yen in the quarter. Nintendo can already claim its first mega-hit smartphone game with Mario Kart Tour, which was downloaded about 124 million times in the first month after launch. The game had only a few days to contribute to the earnings in the quarter after its release on Sept. 25. The game has been downloaded 123.9 million times and raked in revenue of $37.4 million in its first month, according to Sensor Tower data.

Mario Kart Tour's full profit potential is probably still ahead, when the app allows users to race against each other online, Jefferies' Goyal said, raising concern that the company is not moving fast enough to roll out the functionality. Nintendo is still working on the multiplayer mode for the game, President Furukawa said, declining to give a specific timing for the release.

The stock rebounded from a five month low this month, after market researcher Sensor Tower published Mario Kart Tour numbers. The shares got another boost when China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television approved several imported games, including the Switch console version of Super Mario Bros U deluxe. Furukawa said the application process for a launch in China is going as planned, but the company hasn't yet secured all the necessary approvals.

--With assistance from Foster Wong.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Peter Elstrom, Vlad Savov

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