Nintendo’s Profits Increase By 5x With Animal Crossing Selling Over 22 Million Copies

This last Thursday, Nintendo reported that its quarterly profits have increased by over 5x which is in large part due to the massive success of Animal Crossing New Horizons. The coronavirus has both helped and hurt these sales figures. During the pandemic, many new adopters of the Nintendo Switch console appeared from being stuck at home.

Animal Crossing New Horizons sold over 10.6 million units in its first quarter from launch day, with its total sales numbers reaching 22.4 million since March. ACNH has been crushing it, with over half of new Switch owners playing it during the quarter and being the Switch’s second best selling title, only bested by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Nintendo profits hit 144.7 billion yen, which is a massive leap from the company’s average estimate of 71 billion yen. Nintendo sold over 5.7 million Nintendo Switches during its first quarter, which 3 million of those being the regular Switch and 2.5 million being the Switch Lite.

Had it not been for the pandemic causing shortages during the entire quarter, these sales figures would likely be significantly higher. The Switch has been extremely hard to come by in all areas of the world.

It is forecasted that Nintendo will sell 19 million Switches this year. Shuntaro Furukawa has gone on record stating that he believes the uptick in Switch sales are only temporary, but it is unclear how long this pandemic will last exactly.

What is very strange regarding the massive success of the Switch is the lack of first party games being announced by Nintendo. Switch games on the horizon are looking relatively bare at the moment. Nintendo just yesterday announced that Pikmin 3 Deluxe would be heading to the Switch this coming October, but other than that, Switch owners really don’t have much else to look forward to down the pipeline.

Nintendo’s digital game sales have over tripled, with Nintendo seeing 56% of their game sales coming from digital in the first quarter compared to 38% from the previous year.

Finally, Switches are beginning to show up in stores a bit more now, but overall shortages of the console still remain globally. As stated earlier, the pandemic has both helped and hurt Nintendo in terms of Switch console sales. The number of players looking to get their hands on a Switch has never been higher, but the number of Switches available still remains low. Hopefully moving into Fall, Nintendo will have sorted out the stock shortage issue and can meet demand head on.