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Nintendo Reports 1st Operating Profit in 5 Years, Set to Announce 1st Smartphone Game

Nintendo published its earnings statement on Wednesday for the six month period ending on September 30, 2015, reporting an operating profit of 8.9 billion yen (US$73.8 million). This is the first time in five years that Nintendo has had a positive operating income in its 4-6 month financial reports. Nintendo had a deficit of 215 million yen after the same six month period last year.

Net sales were up 19.1% to 204.1 billion yen (US$1.7 billion) from the same six month period last year, but total profit attributable to owners of parent was down 19.8% to 11.5 billion yen (US$95.4 million).

In addition, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima revealed in a press conference in Osaka that Nintendo will unveil its first smartphone game title on Thursday. This game will launch by the end of 2015, and will be the first of five smartphone games Nintendo is planning to release by March 2016.

Nintendo had announced in March that it had developed a business alliance with mobile game developer DeNA to create new smartphone games, and it is working with Niantic to release the Pokémon GO smartphone app in 2016.

U.S.-based brand consultancy Interbrand dropped Nintendo from its Best Global Brands list this year, citing Nintendo's delay in entering the smartphone game market as the reason for the omission.

However, Nintendo saw a slight increase in console sales during this period. Sales on the Nintendo 3DS XL and Nintendo 2DS dropped with the release of the New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL systems, but collectively they sold 2.3 million units. The Wii U sold 1.2 million units, which Nintendo attributes in part to the success of Splatoon, which was released in May, and Super Mario Maker.

Sources: Mainichi Simbun via Otakomu, The Sankei Shimbun via Hachima Kikō