Square Enix suffers drop in sales and profits

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest publisher, Square Enix, has announced full year financial results for the twelve months ending March 31, 2009, noting that both sales and profits dropped during that time.

The company, which recently acquired Tomb Raider publisher Eidos, saw revenues fall by 8 per cent compared to the previous year at JPY 135.7 billion (USD 1.44 billion), while net income dropped 31.1 per cent to JPY 6.3 billion (USD 67 million).

Despite that, the company ended the year in a strong cash position, up JPY 400 million (USD 4.25 million) to JPY 111.9 billion (USD 1.2 billion), while the total dividend payout will be JPY 3.45 billion (USD 36.7 million).

The figures reveal that the company's key expense was salary payments, hitting almost JPY 16 billion (USD 170.2 million) and up nearly JPY 2 billion (USD 21 million) on the previous year.

The majority of sales came from the Amusement division under the Taito group, although that segment made a loss on high operating expenses. Offline games made the highest profit, followed by mobile phone content and publications.

The company is currently working on the latest instalment of the Final Fantasy franchise - Final Fantasy XIII - which will be the series' first foray on to the Xbox 360 platform.