Robust holiday sales of its Wii and DS game machines helped Nintendo more than double its quarterly operating profit and prompted it to raise its outlook above market expectations.Operating profit at Nintendo, creator of game characters Mario and Zelda, came to $1.9 billion in October-December, up from $940.3 million a year earlier, Reuters calculations showed.
Shares in Nintendo briefly jumped more than 5 percent on Friday. By midday, shares were up 3.6 percent at 55,000 yen ($514.59) after climbing as high as 55,900 yen ($523.01). The benchmark Nikkei average was up 2.2 percent.
JP Morgan said Nintendo's sales and profits
"Christmas season sales were even stronger than expected for the company's main product lines, including both software and hardware for the Wii and Nintendo DS," JP Morgan analysts Eiji Maeda and Yuko Sekine wrote in a note to clients.
"The company also made progress in cutting costs, particularly by restraining advertising spending more than we anticipated."
The Wii, which features a motion-sensing controller that looks like a TV remote control, the double-screened DS handheld unit, and a range of innovative and easy-to-use games have attracted a wide range of new users including women and the elderly.
Wii sales topped those of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 in both the United States and Japan last year.
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