I'm Tsujimoto, President of Capcom. Thank you for joining us today for Capcom's full year financial results presentation, despite your very busy schedule. Firstly, I'd like to go over Capcom's corporate philosophy once again. Capcom is a creator of entertainment culture that stimulates the senses, and since our founding, we have provided games and other high-quality content to create smiles and move hearts around the globe. Our purpose is to contribute to building richer, more fulfilling lives for people through games and other content. Going forward, we will contribute to addressing important social issues while building a sustainable society, bring joy and emotion to the world, and work to create an environment where games can be enjoyed while providing the energy for people to push forward in their lives. June 11th of last year marked the fortieth anniversary of Capcom's founding.
To celebrate, we carried out a number of activities. The largest of these was Capcom Town, a website built to be a digital destination that fans around the world could enjoy. This site became an important touch point with our customers, where we gathered fan opinions while working to enhance awareness of our Capcom brand. As of March 31st, the site has had over 4.4 million visitors from places like Japan and the U.S., as well as Brazil, Europe, Asia, and all over the world, helping us to strengthen ties with global fans. We will continue growing our fan base in the 230+ countries and regions where we sell games, creating pinnacle of entertainment with our original content to support sustainable growth and improved corporate value over the next 10 years and beyond.
Next, I would like to take you through our medium-term management objectives and plans for March 2025 fiscal year. To begin, let us look at the latest market forecast for game. The outlook for the game market is continued growth, including for our primary consumer market. In 2023, the market reached $222.3 billion, approximately JPY 34 trillion. Both this result and the future outlook are higher than previous estimates, and it is expected to reach $258.8 billion by 2028, a 16% increase, which is approximately JPY 39 trillion compared to 2023. By platform, mobile market growth is expected to be the largest, but the PC and console games are also expected to grow.
While Capcom has achieved major growth over the past 10 years, given the market environment, we have analyzed and we're convinced that there is still room to grow further. Next, the global game player population is also expected to keep growing. As of 2023, the number of global game players has reached 3.3 billion. Our main targets of PC and console players is estimated to be 1.5 billion people. Since we have achieved 46 million units in annual sales as of March 2024 fiscal year, we see the situation as an excellent opportunity for ongoing growth. Next, I would like to discuss our medium-term management objectives. Our current midterm goal is annual operating profit growth of 10%.
In the March 2024 fiscal year, we continued to pursue enhanced digital sales in our consumer business segment, while steadily building up global software sales and profit. And as a result, we achieved our 11th consecutive year of profit growth since the March 2013 fiscal year, as well as our 7th consecutive year of record profit. In the March 2025 fiscal year, we are aiming to reach JPY 64 billion in operating profit and further growth. Unit sales growth in the consumer business is supporting this ongoing profit growth.
Unit sales volume has increased since the March 2015 fiscal year for nine consecutive years due to promoting digital sales and the steady release of major hit titles in recent years. Further, following the shift to digital sales, we have maintained a ratio of over 70% catalog title sales in recent years, thanks to expanding demand for catalog titles globally. In the fiscal year, March 2024, sales of critically acclaimed titles in key franchises supported this high ratio of sales, including Resident Evil 4, released March 2023, and Monster Hunter World, released March 2018. We will continue to aim for sales volume growth to support stable earnings growth. Considering that the current population of PC and console game players is roughly 1.5 billion, I believe a long-term goal of 100 million units in annual sales is very achievable.
Next, I will explain our activities to further expand unit sales. My first point is expanding our sales regions by actively supporting the PC platform. As shown by this map, we have widened our sales regions in recent years, thanks to greater adoption of digital sales on PC, which has enabled us to sell our games even in countries and regions where dedicated game consoles are not available. In the previous year, including our back catalog of games, we have sold 292 different products in 235 countries and regions, with more than 50% of digital units sold on the PC. Furthermore, the per-country sales volume has also grown compared to five years ago.
Looking ahead, we will raise the level of sales volume in lower-performing countries and regions, specifically in Global South, by strengthening brand awareness worldwide with movies and TV shows featuring our content, while carrying out global data analysis and marketing. For your reference, here is our annual unit sales by area for the past five years. While true that sales volumes are highest in established markets, developing countries also show the highest rates of growth. Over five years, we've seen areas more than double in sales, including growth in Asia of 209%, South America of 266%, and the Middle East, 270%. In addition to existing markets, we anticipate continued growth in developing and emerging markets in the future, driven by the PC platform.
My second point is releasing high-quality titles on a regular, continuous basis. In recent years, following the release of a new game, we've been able to continue selling that game over the long term as a high-margin catalog title by carrying out digital discounts in stages. This is evidenced by the results we have had since the March 2017 fiscal year, when we began to accelerate our focus on digital sales. For example, Resident Evil 7 was released in the March 2017 fiscal year and has sold over 1 million units each year for 8 consecutive years, with cumulative sales now over 13 million units. Similarly, Monster Hunter World, released in the March 2018 fiscal year, and has sold a Capcom record of over 25 million units.
Resident Evil 4, released in March 2023, has been highly acclaimed and sold over 7 million units worldwide in about one year. Further, fiscal year March 2024 releases, Street Fighter 6 and Dragon's Dogma 2 are both off to a strong start and have sold over 3.3 million and 2.62 million units, respectively. We expect continued sales growth for these titles in the future. As a result of expanding our sales regions and selling high-quality titles over the long term, catalog title sales volume has grown 6x over the past 10 years, from 5.7 million units in the March 2014 fiscal year to over 36 million units in the March 2024 fiscal year. Consolidated operating profit has grown in conjunction with this, and as I mentioned, we have achieved 11 consecutive years of profit growth.
As growth of high-margin catalog title sales strongly promotes growth of our consolidated earnings, we plan to continue our focus on catalog title sales. ... Moving on, I will now review the three points of our management strategy for ensuring long-term growth. First is our personnel or talent investment strategy. I have discussed this in the past, however, we are pursuing investment in personnel as one of our strategic management priorities to ensure the long-term growth of our company.
In addition to increasing the average annual salary of permanent employees by 30%, strengthening the link between company performance and our bonus system, and introducing a stock grant ESOP program, we have announced that we will increase the entry-level starting salary for new graduates to JPY 300,000 per month, starting in fiscal year March 2026, with the aim of acquiring talented people as we continue to invest in human capital.
We are also carrying out initiatives to improve communication and employee engagement, including company-wide briefings to deepen employee understanding of our business situation, as well as seminars about health, mental health, and harassment prevention. Moreover, in order to provide a comfortable working environment and promote diversity, we aim to achieve an 88% or better ratio in the male to female wage gap, and 85% or better ratio of male employees taking paternity leave by 2029.
By providing an even more comfortable work environment for employees and carrying out hiring and training, we aim to enhance productivity going forward. Further, we are working to bolster the company by continuing to hire at least 100 new graduates for our R&D organization. The second strategic point is strengthening our brands. As I mentioned, we have widely expanded our sales regions. However, there is still a disparity in sales volume between regions. It is important for us to increase penetration and strengthen our brand in many areas to reach 100 million units in annual sales. As such, we will promote global branding to increase awareness of Capcom's games. For example, last year, we worked with Niantic on the mobile game Monster Hunter Now, which has now been downloaded more than 15 million times.
We hope this game will contribute to further increasing the brand awareness of the Monster Hunter series worldwide. Further, movies and television shows are very effective for increasing brand awareness, as they can convey the world and feel of a game without playing it. We have worked to maximize the promotional benefits of visual media in the past year, with works like the feature-length CG animated movie, Resident Evil: Death Island, and the animated Onimusha series that began streaming worldwide on Netflix.
We also continue to promote growth of Esports globally, such as with large-scale prize money at events. The third is bolstering related businesses. We are working to enhance earnings in each of our business segments. This is because by creating an earnings foundation in related businesses, such as Arcade Operations and Amusement Equipments, we can create stable growth.
We aim to continue building a stable earnings foundation in each of these segments, not only with existing structures, but also by incorporating new business models. Next, I will go over our guidance for the March 2025 fiscal year. Last year, driven by growth in the consumer sub-segment of Digital Contents, we marked 11 consecutive years of operating profit growth and record high net sales and profit at all levels.
This year, we're aiming to focus on major new and digital title sales to grow our core consumer business. We aim for eight consecutive years of record profit. We also plan to achieve our 12th consecutive year of operating profit growth. Also, please note that due to the timing of releases for new titles this year, we anticipate earnings to be weighted to the second half of the fiscal year.
We plan for net sales to increase JPY 12.5 billion- JPY 165 billion. Operating income to increase by JPY 6.9 billion- JPY 64 billion, with an operating profit margin of 38.8%. We plan for ordinary income to increase by JPY 3.5 billion- JPY 63 billion, and net income to increase 2.6% to JPY 46 billion. The EPS forecast is JPY 109.9 per share, and we plan to an interim dividend of JPY 18, and a year-end dividend of JPY 18, making the annual dividend JPY 36. Lastly, here is our business segment guidance. The Digital Contents business will continue to drive our growth.
By expanding digital sales of major new and catalog titles globally, we expect to sell a record 50 million units for the year. As a result, we plan for net sales to increase JPY 5.1 billion- JPY 125 billion, operating income to increase JPY 7 billion- JPY 66.9 billion, with an operating margin of 53.5%. We also anticipate increased sales and profit in the Arcade Operations business due to contributions from new and existing stores, as well as increased sales and profit in the Amusement Equipments business via the launch of four new models. In other businesses, we will continue to promote investment of Esports, but anticipate increased sales and profit through strengthening activities in the Character Contents and Media Businesses. This will conclude my presentation.
We aim to deliver another year of record earnings through our focus on steadily growing worldwide digital sales in our core consumer business. In order for us to continue our expansion, all of us, including our employees, their families, and our global stakeholders, we will come together as one and focus our efforts on enhancing corporate value. I humbly ask for your continued support. Thank you very much.