Nintendo could suffer first profit drop in 6 years
Declining sales of Wii hardware, price cut and poor yen to impact business
Nintendo could announce its first drop in profits for six years, according to market watchers.
Income for the Japanese giant is likely to fall 11 per cent to JPY 249.3 billion, the first drop since the 12 months ended March 2004, according to Bloomberg.
"Nintendo may cut its profit projection about 30 per cent because of sluggish sales in the first half, the price cut for the Wii and currency-related impact," said Satoru Kikuchi, of Deutsche Bank AG in Tokyo. "Investors are expecting the company to fully reflect its business environment in its forecast."
The company will announce its results on October 29, and had originally forecast JPY 300 billion net income this year.
Sales of the Wii console have been falling, with the hardware outsold by Sony's PlayStation 3 last month in the US.
Nintendo was the last of the big three hardware manufacturers to cut the price of its console in the US, Japan and Europe, although the street price remains the same in the UK.