Nintendo Raises full-year Switch Sales Forecast: The nine months ended December 31, 2023, saw an increase in sales and net profit for Nintendo, which is likely attributable to the Switch’s final Christmas on shelves before its anticipated replacement joins it later this year.
Nintendo reported lower sales of both hardware and software, but raised its full-year projection marginally. Including hardware, software, and accessories, sales on Nintendo’s own platforms were up 4.7% to ¥1.3 trillion ($8.7 billion), while sales relating to mobile and intellectual property went up 93.4% to ¥75.2 million ($505 billion).
This was a result of the money that came in from the April 2023 release of the Super Mario Bros. movie. In terms of hardware, sales of the Switch dropped 34.9% to 340 million devices in the nine months ending in December 2023 from 5.22 million in the corresponding period the year before.
In the nine months ending in December 2022, sales of the OLED model were 7.69 million units, increasing by 6.2% to 8.17 million units. With 2.18 million units sold, the Switch Lite outsold all other platforms by a wide margin (9.1% vs. 2 million units sold in the corresponding period last year).
For the Switch models, Nintendo emphasized “stable” sales “given the fact the platform is in its seventh year, and the results were generally in line with [its] expectations.”
Net sales rose 4.7% to ¥1.35 trillion ($9.1 billion), despite a decline in hardware and software unit sales compared to the previous year. Even though software unit sales were down for the year as a whole, 24 new products (including games from other publishers) had excellent debuts in 2023, selling over a million.
Following its May 2023 launch, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold around 20.3 million units, while Pikmin 4 sold 3.3 million units after its July release.
Following its October release, Super Mario Bros. Wonder went on to sell nearly 12 million copies. The game sold 10.7 million copies worldwide by the third quarter’s end, “making it the fastest-selling Super Mario title to date.”
Super Mario Bros. Movie “had a positive impact on sales of Mario-related titles,” according to Nintendo. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe added 6.79 million copies to that total, bringing the total to 60.6 million units.
Digital sales reached ¥346 billion ($2.3 billion), an 11.7% year-on-year gain. Nintendo noted a rise in sales for Nintendo Switch Online and digital content for games like Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet.
During the nine months ended December 31, 2023, Nintendo also achieved its “highest ever” number of annual players, with an estimated 122 million users, up from 114 million in the same period last year.
Regional data also showed that 70% of sales occurred outside of the US, with the Americas accounting for 43.9%, Europe for 25%, and Japan for 21.3%.
The video game company Nintendo has raised its full-year software and hardware sales projections. The platform holder has raised its sales projection for hardware from 15 million to 15.5 million. Its software sales projections have been updated from 185 million to 190 million copies.
If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in reading other articles like this one on technology: