TOKYO — Japan's Nintendo Co. raised its group sales forecast 7.3 per cent Thursday for the business year that ended in March to 966 billion yen (US$8.14 billion) thanks to the popularity of its Nintendo DS handheld game console.

The Kyoto-based game maker, which previously had projected group sales of 900 billion yen, said in a statement that it also expects profit to exceed its previous forecast by an unspecified amount due to the revision.

Robust sales of Nintendo DS hardware and software were the driving force behind the revision, the statement said.

The company also said it was now expecting a foreign exchange profit of about 20 billion yen ($168 million), reversing the 10 billion yen loss it had previously forecast. The statement attributed the change to the yen's actual exchange rate against the dollar being weaker than originally forecast.

The company will release detailed earnings on April 26.

Nintendo announced the revision after the end of morning trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where its stock ended the day's session up 1.63 per cent to 34,300 yen ($288).