File photo: CGTN

TOKYO, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Nintendo Co. said Thursday its net profit for the business year through March had climbed more than 33 percent owing to solid sales of its Switch game consoles and popular software titles.

According to Nintendo, its net profit increased 33.3 percent from a year earlier to 258.64 billion yen (2.42 billion U.S. dollars), while its operating profit climbed 41.1 percent to 352.37 billion yen (3.30 billion U.S. dollars).

This, the Kyoto-based company said, was based on sales of 1.31 trillion yen (12.29 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 9.0 percent.

Nintendo, also the maker of the popular 3DS and 2DS models of handheld consoles, said that it had to contend with supply chain issues as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic, but that its earning had not been significantly affected.

Aside from brisk sales of its Switch console, Nintendo also said its solid earnings were also based on robust sales of popular game titles.

Nintendo also said, however, that for the year through March 2021, it forecasts its net profit to retreat 22.7 percent to 200 billion yen (1.87 billion U.S. dollars) and its operating profit to drop 14.9 percent to 300 billion yen (2.81 billion U.S. dollars), based on sales declining 8.3 percent to 1.2 trillion yen (11.26 billion U.S. dollars).

The cautious projection is partly based on the firm expecting sales of its Switch consoles to edge down from 21 million units in the year ending March, to 19 million units looking ahead and a decline in Switch game sales to 140 million.

"We expect the COVID-19 impact on our production to go away by summer, and our 19 million sales forecast is based on that. But we will revise the forecast if the virus impact is set to persist longer than we currently expect," Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said.

"There's a risk that we may need to delay releases of the games we plan for this fiscal year. But, at this point, we don't expect any major delays," Furukawa added.