Pokemon Go doubles Nintendo's third quarter profits
Japanese electronics giant Nintendo has more than doubled its profits in the third quarter due to the sales of its Pokemon game software.
Sales for the games company’s handheld 3DS device rose, partly due to the success of the smartphone game.
The company’s profits jumped to 64.7bn yen in the three months to December 2016, surpassing analysts' predictions of 20bn yen, up from 29.1bn in the previous period.
As a result, the company raised its full-year profit forecast to 90bn yen from its previous projection for 50bn yen.
Its other recent smartphone release “Super Mario Run”, brought in over 5.6bn yen ($50m) since going on sale in December, performing better than analysts expected, however the company’s chief executive was not satisfied as it may not be enough to significantly increase the overall bottom line.
The group will launch its newest console Switch on 3 March 2017, which some analysts believe could be its last shot at selling a home console after the Wii U was quickly outsold by Sony’s PS4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One.
Nintendo also benefited from a weaker yen, with 75% of sales originating from outside of Japan.
Its share price fell 1.89% to 23,120 yen at the close on Tuesday.