| | |
Konami Cuts Profit Target on Slow Sales
Konami said new titles of "YU-GI-OH!" card games, featuring duelling monsters and wizards, continued to enjoy brisk sales, but demand for its old titles put to the market last year slowed down.
The card game, originally a comic series in a popular weekly magazine, has become one of the company's most popular offerings. Konami now sees group net profit of 17.5 billion yen ($141.7 million) for the year to March 2002, reducing its estimate sharply from the 24 billion yen it announced in May. Its sales target was revised down to 233 billion yen from 250 billion yen, and Konami also slashed its dividend forecast for the year to 42 yen from its original plan of 56 yen.
The software developer also said the doldrums in Japan's stock market had forced it to push back a planned initial public offering of its software-making subsidiary, Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, into the second half of the business year from the first half. As a result of the delay, which prevented Konami from reaping one-off gains through sales of its unit's shares, it lowered its expectations for group net profit to 2.5 billion for the six months to June, down from its May estimate of 9.5 billion yen.
Konami reported a record net profit of 21.78 billion yen in the last business year, powered by strong sales of card games and contributions from its fitness unit. When it announced the record profit in May, the company said it would aim to maintain record profits for the next two years. Konami plans to move into the Japan's hugely popular "pachinko" pinball game business, and expand overseas sales of game software and gaming machines.
Konami is also aiming to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 2002 to strengthen its global fund-raising capability as it considers mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances. Shares in Konami, which have steadily outperformed the benchmark Nikkei average since July, closed unchanged at 5,250 yen on Thursday, while the Nikkei 225 share averaged fell 3.36 percent.
However, the shares have lost 40 percent since the beginning of this year.
SOURCE: Reuters.
338
|
|
|
|
