TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Nintendo Co. Ltd. said on Wednesday it raised its annual net profit estimate by 20 percent on strong sales of its DS handheld game player.
Nintendo said it expects net profit of 120 billion yen ($1.01 billion) in the year ending March 31, which compares with the company's previous forecast of 100 billion yen. The company posted a 98.4 billion yen profit in financial year 2005.
TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - The value of the computer game market here grew last year by 37.6 pct to a record 625.8 bln yen, largely because of the success of Nintendo Co Ltd's Nintendo DS, magazine publisher Enterbrain said.
The hardware market expanded by 59.7 pct to 261.90 bln yen and the software market expanded by 25.1 pct to 363.89 bln yen, Enterbrain said in a written statement.
In the hardware market, Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY.PK - news - people ) sold 7.53 mln of its Nintendo DS Lites last year and Sony Corp (nyse: SNE - news - people ) unit Sony Computer Entertainment Inc sold 1.95 mln of its PlayStation Portables and 1.55 mln of its PlayStation 2s.
In the software market, Nintendo sold 24.22 mln sets, Square Enix Co Ltd sold 6.85 mln sets and Pokemon Co sold 5.59 mln sets, Enterbrain said.