Kimishima on Switch’s sales in North America, Europe, Japan; momentum comparable to Wii
Posted on January 31, 2018 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News
This information comes from Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima…
First let me talk about last year’s holiday season. At last year’s financial results briefing in October, I noted that the big challenge for Nintendo Switch in its first holiday season was to gain the support of a wide range of consumers. I also noted that we would expand production in order to supply the product in stable quantities for the holiday season. This was the result:
As we entered the holiday season, the installed base of Nintendo Switch hardware began expanding at an accelerated pace around the world. Let me turn now to a discussion of our primary markets.
This graph shows changes in cumulative sellthrough in the North American market following the release of Nintendo Switch. The sell-through figures for Wii and Wii U in their first years after launch are superimposed on the graph. Keep in mind that Wii and Wii U were released during the holiday season, whereas Nintendo Switch was released in March, meaning that the timing of the release differed from the timing of the holiday season. As you can see, the
pace of Nintendo Switch sales, depicted by the red line, picked up substantially during the holiday season. Because the Nintendo Switch launch was not timed to the holiday season, you cannot make a simple comparison between platforms. However, Nintendo Switch is establishing itself at a record pace, with the first 10 months of sales in North America exceeding even those for Wii, which had been our previous fastest-selling home console.
These are the figures for the European market. In the European market, Nintendo Switch sales grew substantially during the holiday season, exhibiting a momentum comparable with Wii.
These are the figures for the Japanese domestic market. In the domestic market in Japan, we were able to deliver strong supply for the holiday season, and sales increased dramatically.
Nintendo Switch was released in March of last year and surpassed the cumulative global sell-through milestone of 10 million units in early December. The number now exceeds 13 million. The results for the first holiday season exceeded our expectations.
