Iwata’s full comments on amiibo sales, shortages
Posted on May 7, 2015 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News
We launched a new product category – amiibo – simultaneously with “Super Smash Bros for Wii U,” and the end of the subject fiscal term marked a total shipment of approximately 10.5 million units worldwide. As we had shipped approximately 5.7 million units by the end of calendar year 2014, it is safe to say that we achieved very strong growth even in the period immediately after the year-end sales season was over. Our assessment is that people purchase additional amiibo figures without any seasonal bias, as they are relatively more affordable than video game titles.
Our consumers have been inconvenienced by stock shortages on some of the figures in our amiibo lineup. We have increased production for amiibo figures that have sold out very quickly after launch, that are indispensable to play a certain game and for which we have received strong demand from retailers and consumers. However, we are very sorry that we can?t promise at what point we will likely be able to resolve the current situation because figures such as these require a considerable amount of time to produce, store shelf space is limited and it is difficult to precisely predict the exact amount of overall demand.
On the other hand, the number of software titles compatible with amiibo is increasing and consumers’ recognition and understanding for amiibo has improved significantly compared to the launch period, so we believe that we can predict further sales growth.
This pie graph shows the most recent regional shipment breakdown of amiibo. The U.S. and Canada, shown in red in the graph, have an overwhelmingly large 66 percent share, showing a tremendous presence overall.
In addition to figure offerings in the amiibo lineup this year, we are planning to release Yarn Yoshi amiibo and card-type amiibo. The first software title that is compatible with these amiibo cards is “Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer,” which for Nintendo 3DS. Simultaneously, we will also launch the “Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader/Writer” so that not only the owners of New Nintendo 3DS, which is equipped with NFC functionality, but also the owners of the original Nintendo 3DS systems can play with amiibo. The NFC Reader/Writer enables consumers to play with amiibo on the original Nintendo 3DS systems, and we believe we can expect further growth in amiibo sales with this significant increase in the number of compatible hardware systems.
