Switch Sales Near 85m in Nintendo’s Most Profitable Year Ever

Nintendo has reported that it has experienced its most profitable financial year on record, with operating profit up 81% year-on-year. Additionally, the company is approaching 85 million sales of its Nintendo Switch console. As revealed in Nintendo’s financial results for the year ending March 31, 2021, operating profit has risen 81.8% year-on-year, up to 640 billion yen ($5.9 billion). Ordinary profit is recorded at an 88.4% increase, sitting at 679 billion yen ($6.2 billion). This surpasses the company’s previous gross profit record of 501 billion yen, recorded in March 2019. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/09/26/nintendo-switch-lite-review"] It’s not quite a record year for net sales revenue, but it’s close; at 1.76 billion yen ($16.1 billion), it is the second-highest year on record, just behind 2009’s 1.83 billion yen ($16.8 billion). Lifetime sales of the Nintendo Switch are now at 84.59 million units, with 28.8 million of those being sold last year. That’s over both standard and Lite versions of those consoles; 14.7 million of those units are Switch Lites. The year saw Nintendo sell 230.9 million games, meaning 587.12 million games have been sold for the console to date. A huge contributor to the year’s sales was Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which sold 20.85 million units. As for Mario, the leader of the pack remains Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which sold an additional 10.62 million copies this year, bringing its total to 35.4 million. Super Mario 3D All-Stars sold 9 million copies, but further growth has now been throttled due to it being taken off sale. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, meanwhile, has sold 5.6 million units to date. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=a-history-of-nintendo-hardware-1977-to-now&captions=true"] Ring Fit Adventure also saw a strong year, with 7.38 million copies sold, bringing lifetime sales to 10.11 million. Pandemic lockdown and the search for home exercise equipment no doubt contributed to this huge demand. Of the games sold this year, 42.8% were sold digitally, which is an increase over last year’s 34%. Looking ahead, Nintendo expects a decline in profit and revenue in the year that will end March 2022 - the demand for consoles and games experienced through the pandemic lockdowns will be hard to match - but does note that it has an array of anticipated games to come. Those include the already announced Miitopia, Mario Golf: Super Rush, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl in 2021, and the newly announced Game Creator Garage. In early 2022, we can also expect Pokémon Legends: Arceus. No mention was made of a release date for Breath of the Wild 2. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

source https://www.ign.com/articles/switch-sales-near-85m-in-nintendos-most-profitable-year-ever