Nintendo Switch Sales Strong in Q2 as Operating Profit Drops 10%

By Todd Spangler

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The House of Mario continues to power up sales: Nintendo sold 2.13 million Switch units in the June 2019 quarter, up 13% from the year-earlier period.

To date, the Japanese video-game company has sold 36.87 million Switch consoles. The sustained sales performance of the hybrid game system comes as it preps the September launch of a lower-cost, mobile-only option: Nintendo Switch Lite, priced at $199 (33% less than the Switch’s list price of $299).

About the Switch Lite, the company said, “By offering consumers a choice of hardware that matches their preferred play style, we aim to further expand the installed base for .”

Overall, Nintendo quarterly sales grew 2.4%, to about $1.59 billion (172.1 billion yen), of which 76.5% was generated outside of Japan. Operating profit missed analyst expectations, coming in at $252 million (27.4 billion yen), a year-over-year decline of 10.7%. Net profit dropped 46%, to about $153 million (16.6 billion yen), which the company blamed on foreign currency exchange-rate fluctuations.

Last month’s release of “Super Mario Maker 2” for Nintendo Switch sold 2.42 million units in the period. Other Switch titles continued to show growth, including “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” which sold 1.2 million units in the most recent quarter (17.89 million units to date).

Ahead of the Nintendo Switch Lite intro, sales of the legacy Nintendo 3DS system continued to drop: Hardware sales totaled 200,000 units (down 45% year-on-year) and software sales came to 1.48 million units (a 50% decrease).

Sales of downloadable versions of Nintendo Switch titles showed particularly steady growth, with digital sales rising 65% year over year, to $282 million (30.6 billion yen).

In its earnings release, Nintendo called out upcoming titles for Switch, including “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” (July), “Astral Chain” (August), “The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening” (September), “Luigi’s Mansion 3” (October). Heading into the holiday season, expectations are high for “Pokémon Sword” and “Pokémon Shield” (November), while next year will see the release of “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” (March 2020).