http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLwjmpTdt3D0&refer=home
Nintendo Stock Rises to Record, Exceeds Sony's Value (Update1)
By Hiroshi Suzuki
July 26 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Nintendo Co. rose to a record, bringing the company's market value to $71 billion, after the maker of the top-selling Wii console raised its earnings forecast on demand for the console and game titles.
Nintendo added 6.3 percent to 60,400 yen at the 11 a.m. break on the Osaka Securities Exchange, valuing the Kyoto-based company at 8.56 trillion yen ($71 billion). That exceeds Sony Corp.'s value of 6.51 trillion yen by more than 30 percent.
The company, whose Wii console outsells Sony's PlayStation 3, yesterday raised its net income forecast by 41 percent to 245 billion yen for this fiscal year. More game titles and a cheaper price than Sony's PlayStation 3 may help Nintendo reach an increased sales target of 16.5 million Wii players this year. Tokyo-based Sony, which reports today, forecasts shipments of 11 million PlayStation 3s.
``With the popularity of the Wii and the launch of a new Pokemon game title in Europe on July 27, we expect sales to remain strong for the rest of the year,'' Atsuko Kaneko, a games analyst at UBS Securities Japan Ltd., wrote in a report dated today. She kept her ``buy'' rating on the stock, and raised the 12-month share price target to 63,000 yen from 47,000 yen.
Nintendo, whose market value doubled last year, plans to build on the success of the Wii's motion-sensor remote controller with new products including a steering wheel and exercise pad.
Net income in the first quarter ended June 30 surged fivefold to 80.3 billion yen, the company said yesterday. Sales, bolstered by its DS portable player and the ``Mario'' games series, more than doubled to a record 340.4 billion yen.
