Nintendo Share Price Highest In 45 Years

The management of a corporation are rewarded for ‘increasing shareholder value’, so you’d expect the Nintendo management to have trouble getting out of their offices right now due to the sheer weight of rewards blocking the door. The reason for this is that, according to finance newswire, Bloomberg, Nintendo’s current share price on the Osaka, Japan Securities Exchange, is the best it’s been since the company launched on the exchange in 1962.

Analysts are slapping the Wii on the back for this one – although the DS, which has seen huge success in recent years, must also take some of the credit.

So, is the share price up on ‘good vibes’ and excellent word of mouth? No, while in fanboy land this kind of thing may hold sway, in the land of the market trader, it comes down to cash-money.

According to the company’s recent financial statements, overall sales went up a massive 90% to 966-billion yen (a smidge over £4-billion) for the year ended March 31. This compares well to the Januay forecast of 900-billion yen in sales.

Yes, you say, but the Wii and the DS are not exactly expensive pieces of kit compared to the PS3 or even the Xbox 360. So, maybe it’s sold a load of kit for not much cash? Nintendo states that its earnings are actually up by approximately 20-billion yen (£84-million).

All of this excellent news for president and CEO Satoru Iwata and his team, as are the recent findings from Japan-based statistics company, Enterbrain. Its figures for hardware sales in Japan for the week ending April 8th show sales of the DS up by 28% up to 110,935 (and that’s despite apparent stock shortages). Sales of the Wii also rose 52,583 – this compares with the PSP’s Japanese sales of 31,503 during the same week.

The PlayStation 3 beat out the Xbox’s 2,963 sales with 14,520 units of its own (less than half the Wii’s).