March NPD data to show 35% growth for March, says analyst

Lazard Capital's Colin Sebastian just published a note saying he expects next week's March NDP data to show a heavy sales rise for the month.

"We estimate 35 percent growth in March software data," he said. "Next week, NPD is scheduled to release industry sell-through data for the month of March. We believe software sales benefited from several strong new title releases, catalog sales of titles such as Call of Duty (ATVI) and Rock Band (MTV/ERTS), the shift of the Easter holiday into March (from April last year), earlier spring breaks, and improving PS3 hardware sales."

He added: "Industry sales trends remain positive into Spring. Our retail and industry channel checks indicate that video game selling trends remain positive through early April. Specifically, we believe there is little spillover into the video game market from overall consumer spending weakness, and that key software releases have sold well, including Super Smash Brawl (Nintendo), Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (UbiSoft), and Army of Two (ERTS)."

We love NPD data. It's our favourite time of the month. Give us some American sales figures, right now.