Namco Bandai reports $67 million loss for first half year
Sales down 9% on 2009; software shipments for period also down
Namco Bandai's earnings for the first half of fiscal 2010 have plummeted on last year, with the company reporting a net loss of JPY 6 billion (USD 67.2 million) for the period, compared to a profit last year of JPY 1.3 billion (USD 14.2 million.
Sales for the period, ending September 30, dropped 9.5 per cent on last year to JPY 172.7 billion (USD 1.2 billion). The company's best selling game for the half year was licensed title Ben 10 Alien Force, which has sold 480,000 units across the US and Europe.
Afro Samurai, its second biggest selling title, released in January this year, sold 420,000 units, while Tales of Vesperia sold 410,000.
In total 8.4 million units of software were shipped by Namco during the first half, a number that was down from 8.9 million units in the previous half year.
While fiscal 2010 profit is forecast by the company to be lower than last year, the release of Tekken 6 in the third quarter is predicted to boost software sales numbers for the remainder of the year.
Namco expects to sell 25.7 million software units in total by the end of the year, up from last year's 23.4 million units.
It predicts sales of JPY 400 billion (USD 4.45 billion), down from last year's JPY 426 billion (USD 4.75 billion), and net income of JPY 8.5 billion (USD 94.6 million), down from JPY 11.8 billion (USD 131.7 million) in 2009.