Nintendo’s previous fiscal year (March 2020 through to March 2021) was a very good one in terms of hardware and software sales. Driven by the popular and much-loved Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the need for many to stay indoors, Nintendo experienced a temporary spike in sales, and the company has spoken about it. In the recent financial briefing that happened last week, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa explained to investors that he forecasts Nintendo to shift 25.50 million units in the next fiscal year. He also points out that the Switch still has a lot of momentum, even with recent stock shortages.
Here’s the excerpt in question from the financial briefing about the sales forecast:
“The financial forecast for the current fiscal year was created based on our results through the previous fiscal year (ended March 2021) and the sales projection for the current fiscal year, taking two main points into consideration. The first point is that during the previous fiscal year, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, released in March 2020, was a hit and greatly drove hardware sales, especially in the first half of the year. As a result, sales during the first half of the previous fiscal year were on a scale unprecedented in our company’s history, and we believe that we need to take this temporary effect into consideration. The second point is that hardware and software sales remained quite strong during the fourth quarter (January through March) of the previous fiscal year, and that even recently we are still maintaining a high level of sales. In March of this year, Nintendo Switch entered its fifth year since launch. However, we recognize that, unlike the fifth year in the life cycles of our previous game systems, Nintendo Switch currently has very high momentum. Taking these two points into consideration, we have set our hardware sales forecast for this fiscal year at 25.50 million units.”