Nintendo sold less and earned more in the six months to September 2026. Sales fell 12.1% to ¥966.0bn, while operating profit rose 49.1% to ¥216.5bn, according to the company's interim earnings summary. A year earlier, the same half produced sales of ¥1.10tn and operating profit of ¥145.2bn, in a period when sales had more than doubled.
Why profit rose while sales fell
Nintendo ties the sales decline to lower hardware unit sales. It credits the profit gain to two things: software making up a larger share of sales, and a refund of US tariffs imposed under the IEEPA, which had been booked in cost of sales and was received in the first quarter of the fiscal year. The release does not say how much the refund contributed, so the split between recurring software strength and a one-off cannot be read from it. Cost of sales fell to ¥479.6bn from ¥701.1bn, while selling and administrative expenses rose to ¥270.0bn from ¥253.3bn.
The unit numbers cover April to September only. Nintendo Switch 2 hardware sold 6.49mn units and Switch 2 software 24.49mn copies. The older Switch sold 1.27mn consoles and 65.73mn software copies, helped by the fact that Switch 2 plays Switch games. Named titles include Splatoon Raiders at 2.42mn and Fire Emblem at 1.34mn, plus Tomodachi Life at 8.81mn on the older Switch. The release gives no prior-year unit counts, so the size of the hardware drop is not stated.
Digital sales on game consoles rose 60.5% to ¥249.6bn, which Nintendo attributes partly to higher download sales of software also sold in packaged form. Revenue from IP-related income and other items, which Nintendo links to the audience for the Super Mario Galaxy film, rose 87.9% to ¥62.7bn. Overseas sales were ¥762.4bn, or 78.9% of the total.
Below the operating line
Ordinary profit rose 27.4% to ¥300.7bn, helped by equity-method gains of ¥60.8bn and interest income of ¥26.7bn. Last year's half included an ¥18.5bn foreign-exchange gain; this year's has a ¥7.3bn loss. Net profit attributable to owners of the parent rose 11.0% to ¥220.9bn. Inventories climbed to ¥814.6bn from ¥539.8bn at March 31, and Nintendo lists them among the main reasons total assets grew. The summary is not covered by an auditor's review.
Guidance and the dividend
Nintendo left its full-year forecast, set on 8 May, unchanged: sales of ¥2.05tn (down 11.4%), operating profit of ¥370bn (up 2.7%), ordinary profit of ¥430bn (down 20.7%) and net profit of ¥310bn (down 26.9%). The company says it will keep releasing Switch 2 hardware and software: it launched a Zelda 40th anniversary edition console in October, and a Metroid title is scheduled for January.
The board set an interim dividend of ¥76 a share, a total of ¥87.6bn, against ¥42 and ¥48.9bn a year earlier. The record date is 30 September and payment starts on 1 December. The earnings summary flags a dividend revision, but the dividend notice says the annual forecast of ¥162 is unchanged from May. The May forecast gave only an annual total, so the year-end payment is now implied at ¥86. Last year's total was ¥219.
Nintendo's policy sets the interim payout at 40% of interim operating profit. The annual payout is the higher of 40% of full-year operating profit or a 60% consolidated payout ratio.