Nintendo sold slightly more than 15 million Switch consoles in the last fiscal year, matching its own high expectations after a hugely successful launch. Initially, the company planned to send 10 million in the year from April 2017, then increased its forecast to 14 million last October, then again to 15 million in January. The total amount sold since its launch on March 3, 2017 is now 17.79 million, surpassing the 13.56 million Wii U sold in its five years of production.
In general, Nintendo obtained operating profits of 178 billion yen ($ 1.620 million) year, a massive increase of 505 percent in the last 12 months. Revenues increased 116 percent to 1.06 trillion yen ($ 9.66 billion). Nintendo sold more than 10 million copies of Super Mario Odyssey 9 million copies Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and 6 million copies Splatoon 2 along with more than 5 million units of the classic edition of SNES.
Nintendo expects to do even better in the current fiscal year, forecasting an operating profit of 225 trillion yen for 1.2 trillion yen in revenue. The company also forecasts that it will sell 20 million Switch consoles between this month and next March. Labo (above), the new line of cardboard peripherals, is expected to expand the audience for the Switch.
Along with the results, Nintendo announced that its president and CEO Tatsumi Kimishima will no longer be replaced by board member Shuntaro Furukawa, 46 years old. Kimishima, 68, took office in 2015 after the death of Satoru Iwata, and was widely seen as an interim appointment. Given his age and the considerable momentum of Nintendo, it is likely that Furukawa will remain at his post for much longer.
