Some black swan events lead to nearly holiday-level results.
Nintendo released their financial results for the first fiscal quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal year earlier today, shattering multiple records in the process.
All monetary figures reported in yen, with comparisons to the US dollar based on a market rate of $1 = ¥105.547 provided for comparison only.
Financial Results
- Operating income: ¥144.737b ($1.371b), year-over-year increase ¥117.309b ($1.111b)
- Ordinary income: ¥150.329b ($1.424b), YOY increase ¥128.097b ($1.213b)
- Revenue: ¥358.106b ($3.393b), YOY increase ¥185.985b ($1.762b)
- Digital sales: ¥101b ($956.92m), YOY increase ¥71b ($672.7m)
- Mobile revenue: ¥13.2b ($125.062m), YOY increase ¥3.2b ($30.318m)
These results represent the best fiscal Q1 for Nintendo ever.
Hardware Shipments
The only system broken out separately was the Switch, which shipped 5.68m units in the quarter for a new lifetime total of 61.44m (470,000 units short of the NES). The split of systems sold was 2.62m Switch Lites, 3.06m Switches. This is the fourth best hardware shipment for a first quarter ever by Nintendo, trailing only the Nintendo DS from 2007-09.
Software Movement
A total of 50.43m units of Switch software were moved in the first quarter. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the biggest mover, shipping 10.63m units for a new life-to-date total of 22.4 million shipments in a little over three months.
Nintendo's two new software products in the quarter, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, both shipped more than a million units in the quarter. XC:DE shipped 1.32m (including 1.04m outside Japan), while Clubhouse Games shipped 1.03m units.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe shipped another 1.97m units to move to a LTD of 26.74m, and is still the best selling Switch software for now. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate rose to a LTD of 19.99m with a 1.15m unit Q1, the Switch version of Breath of the Wild moved 1.19m units for a new LTD of 18.6m, and Pokemon Sword/Shield (with the first part of its two part DLC shipping in the quarter) moved 850,000 units in the quarter to round out the top 5 at 18.22m units. Ring Fit Adventure, despite significant shortages worldwide, was the final Nintendo game to ship a million copies in the quarter (1.17m) and is now at 3.9m as of June 30. As of July 31, it is over 4m copies shipped.
New Software Information
Pikmin 3 Deluxe and the rollup version of Cadence of Hyrule are both on the schedule as announced, while New Pokemon Snap is on the schedule as TBD. Bravely Default II and Paper Mario: The Origami King (already released) are the only other games on the international list.