Square Enix today released its financial numbers for the third quarter of the current fiscal year ending on March 31st. During the first nine months of the fiscal year 2004/2005, the company posted a net profit of 13.30 billion yen ($129.10 million US) on sales of 60.93 billion yen ($591.44 million US). During the same period of the previous fiscal year, the company posted sales of 40.71 billion yen ($395.17 million US) and a net profit of 10.99 billion yen ($106.68 million US).

The significantly higher numbers can be traced back to the release of Dragon Quest VIII: Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi in Japan on November 27th 2004. Total shipments of the game had already reached 3.59 million units as of late December. While not as successful as its PlayStation 2 predecessor, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was still popular on both sides of the Pacific: Square Enix shipped 360,000 copies to Japanese retail stores and 580,000 copies to their North American counterparts. In the case of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, the figures were 360,000 copies for North America and 110,000 copies for Europe.

Square Enix's other main divisions also could report positive figures, as the online and mobile gaming and publishing divisions continued their strong performances of recent quarters.
Due to the positive business development during the thrid quarter, the company has revised its projections for the full fiscal year. Instead of 25 billion yen ($242.67 million US), the consolidated operating profit is now expected to reach 26.5 billion yen ($257.31 million US). Sales and net profit are expected to reach 73 billion yen ($708.60 million US) and 13.5 billion yen ($131.04 million US) respectively.