Quarterly profit jump fuelled largely by unknown US refund amount as Japanese video game giant records overall sales drop
Nintendo has reported a jump in profits, as the Japanese game maker’s earnings were buoyed up by a long-awaited refund on Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The company said profits surged 53.5% to ¥147.4bn (£694m) over the three months to June, substantially beating expert forecasts for ¥77.8bn.
The company said sales of its Switch 2 console, which was released last summer, “maintained strong sales momentum”, while popular games like Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Star Fox, and Pokémon Pokopia “performed steadily”. However, that did not make up for an overall drop in sales compared with the same period last year, with revenue dropping by 10% to ¥517.8bn.
Instead, Nintendo said profits were aided by a refund on American tariffs, after the US supreme court ruled earlier this year that Trump’s “Liberation Day” trade levies, slapped on countries across the world last year, were illegal.
