The Mobile Suit Gundam Series Leads Sales Groupwide
Bandai Namco Holdings first quarter report for FY2023 sees the Mobile Suit Gundam series overtaking the Dragon Ball series to be the best performing title groupwide for the quarter that took place between April 1 and June 30 this year. It was not always that Dragon Ball would hold an advantage over Mobile Suit Gundam as from FY2009 to FY2017 (refer to chart), it sold much less than the latter, though the situation was turned around in FY2018 when it finally outpaces Mobile Suit Gundam at 19.7 billion yen (≈147.48 million USD) against the other at 15.2 billion yen (≈113.79 million USD). Dragon Ball continued to be ahead (from FY2017) of the rest until now where the 20.83% climb in sales for the Mobile Suit Gundam series edges out Dragon Ball for the first quarter of FY2023 at 29 billion yen (≈217.14 million USD) against the other’s 27.5 billion yen (≈205.90 million USD). Its other top titles include: One Piece at 13.7 billion yen (≈102.61 million USD), up by 37% year-on-year (y-o-y), then, Naruto at 5 billion yen (≈37.44 million USD), a fall of 12.28% y-o-y whereas the fifth best performing title is Kamen Rider at 4.6 billion yen (≈34.45 million USD), down by 17.86% y-o-y.
Standings Remain Nearly Identical for its Toys and Hobby Business
As for its Toys and Hobby Business, the standing remains nearly identical with Mobile Suit Gundam leading by quite a large margin at 14.8 billion yen (≈110.84 million USD), up by 25.42% y-o-y. Although Dragon Ball is the second-best segment for the quarter, its sales are up by a good 36.59% y-o-y to see it placed behind Mobile Suit Gundam at 5.6 billion yen (≈41.93 million USD). Still, the improvement noted by Dragon Ball is not as impressive as the 104.35% climb produced by One Piece y-o-y from 2.3 billion yen (≈17.22 million USD) it made the fiscal year before to 4.7 billion yen (≈35.20 million USD). Kamen Rider and Ultraman are the fourth and fifth best performing titles at 3.2 billion yen (≈23.97 million USD) and 1.5 billion yen (≈11.23 million USD) respectively.
As a result, the segment has noted an increase of 14.2% y-o-y to 94.87 billion yen (≈710.68 million USD) which the group attributed to the success of its marketing and increasing product line-up strategy that saw products that were targeted towards the adult groups were met with positive demand. Sales were strong both in Japan and outside of the country, including positive returns from its trading card game, toys, sweets and capsule toys businesses which were popular among consumers.
Overall
Its IP Production Business (or Creation Business) where it produces video related works such as the Mobile Suit Gundam series and the Love Live series saw sales of packages slumped by 4.35% y-o-y to 2.2 billion yen (≈16.49 million USD) from 2.3 billion yen (≈17.24 million USD) and sales via video production, licensing, distribution, events and others drop by 11.26% y-o-y to 13.4 billion yen (≈100.41 million USD) from 15.1 billion yen (≈113.15 million USD). According to the group, the reduction of sales from the first quarter the year before was due to the initial cost of production of works, plus the slowdown of licensing revenue that impacted sales for the quarter. All in all, the segment experienced 10.2% less in sales for the quarter to 15.68 billion yen (≈117.55 million USD) while profit was hit hard by a 66.3% fall over the same quarter last year to 1.08 billion yen (≈8.13 million USD).
Other than that, its Digital Business segment where it produces home video games, remains strong amid repeating sales of existing titles such as Elden Ring which cumulative sales worldwide has hit 16.6 million copies as of the end of June this year while other titles went up by 34.07% from 8.13 million copies sold the same quarter the year before to 10.9 million copies. Out of those 10.9 million copies sold, 540,000 were sales from new titles. At the same time, the download of full video game packages was up by 77% y-o-y. As a result, the entire segment produced 89,599 million yen (≈671.42 million USD) worth of sales, a 34.1% increase y-o-y while the segment profit improved by 148.7% y-o-y to 29,411 million yen (≈220.40 million USD).
With all the segments accounted for, net sales for the group increased 21.45% y-o-y to close at 216,241 million yen (≈1.62 billion USD) from 178,049 million yen (≈1.33 billion USD) while its profit soared 76.98% to 37,019 million yen (≈277.41 million USD). The group generated the greatest number of sales in Japan which accounts for 68.77% of the total sales, while the others are as follows: Americas at 13.63%, Europe at 8.36% and Asia at 9.24%. As for operating profit by region, Japan leads at 85.63%, Americas at 13.12%, Europe at 7.23% and Asia at 6.63%.
Bandai Namco Holdings’ Group of Companies
BANDAI NAMCO Holdings is incorporated in Japan with its head office in Minato-ku. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under ticket symbol: 7832
Note:
All currency conversion was done at the time of writing.
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Updated (July 14, 2022) – Revised the numbers for some of the charts, I mistakenly took the “Toys and Hobby Business” numbers for FY2007 to FY2014.
Updated (July 15, 2022) – Slight rewording in paragraph 1, 2007 to 2017 → FY2009 to FY2017
Additional notes:
For FY2007 and FY2008, Bandai Namco did not release the individual IP sales, but only Toys and Hobby. They also mistakenly listed the Q2 data for FY2009 on the English page, as such I had sourced the Q1 data for FY2009 from the Japanese page.
Google Chart(s):
BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Sales of IPs (Groupwide) First Quarter FY2023.3
BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Sales of IPs (Groupwide) First Quarter FY2023.3
BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Sales of IPs (Toys and Hobby Business, Japan) First Quarter FY2023.3
BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Sales of IPs (Toys and Hobby Business, Japan) First Quarter FY2023.3
Additional Charts:
Bandai Namco Holdings’ Mobile Suit Gundam Performance in Billion Yen (1st Quarter FY2007 – FY2023)
Bandai Namco Holdings’ Dragon Ball Performance in Billion Yen (1st Quarter FY2007 – FY2023)
Bandai Namco Holdings’ One Piece Performance in Billion Yen (1st Quarter FY2007 – FY2023)
Bandai Namco Holdings’ Kamen Rider Performance in Billion Yen (1st Quarter FY2007 – FY2023)
Bandai Namco Holdings Top 5 IPs in Billion Yen (A Time Series, 1st Quarter FY2007 – FY2023)
Bandai Namco Holdings’ Mobile Suit Gundam vs Dragon Ball in Billion Yen (1st Quarter FY2007 – FY2023)
Sources:
Consolidated Financial Report (Q1 FY2023)
Summary of Accounts (Q1 FY2023)
Financial Highlights (Q1 FY2023)
Presentation Material (Q1 FY2023)
Question and Answer Session
Notice of the Seventeenth Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (June 20, 2022)
Visualisations:
Bandai Namco Holdings Group of Companies
Bandai Namco Holdings First Quarter FY2023
Bandai Namco Holdings First Quarter FY2023 (Fixed)
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