Nintendo releases an earnings report for the last financial year and reveals that it predicts an increase of overall Nintendo Switch sales over the next 12 months.
Nintendo has just released its earnings report for its latest fiscal year ending in March 2018, revealing that the Nintendo Switch has sold an impressive 15.05 million units in its first full year on the market. The Japanese-based company is confident that it can improve on the Switch’s inaugural year, stating that it predicts 20 million units will be sold over the next 12 months. That’s no small task, but Nintendo has plenty of high-profile intellectual properties like Pokemon, Smash Brothers, and Metroid that will inevitably bolster sales for the portable console – though their release dates remain a mystery for now.
The Nintendo Switch has already outsold the Wii U’s lifetime sales of 13.5 million units in its first year of existence, with the earnings report claiming that 15.05 million Switch units (and 17.79 million hardware units total) found their way to consumers since last March. Nintendo also announced that the company has sold 68.97 million software units in the same fiscal period, with the Switch itself having 12 games that sold more than a million units each. Super Mario Odyssey shipped 10.41 million units alone, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (which has now outsold Mario Kart 8) moved 9.22 million.
Nintendo also announced that Tatsumi Kimishima, who took over the reigns as President of Nintendo following the death of Satoru Iwata, will retire on June 28. He will be replaced by Shuntaro Furukawa, a 46 year old executive who has been with the company since 1994. Furukawa has held plenty of positions directly involving marketing and corporate planning, and has been in charge of Nintendo’s entire global marketing team since 2016. Nintendo of Europe President Satoru Shibata has also stepped down, though no replacement for him has been named thus far.
It’s not just Nintendo that expects a strong 2018 from the company, either: retailers are predicting a strong period of growth to take place over the next year, especially after Nintendo hardware sales rose a staggering 44.8% in the most recent fiscal quarter. Over its last few hardware releases Nintendo has had some issues keeping up its hardware supply with the demand of the product, but with its sights locked in at 20 million Switch sales, the company finally seems to have this issue under wraps.
The Nintendo Switch is currently available now.
