Sony is expecting to sell fewer PlayStation 5 units in the current financial year than previously forecasted. The company slashed its forecasts by millions of units due to ongoing component shortages.
Sony had previously expected to sell more than 14.8 million PS5s by March 2022 – a number that would have seen the console exceed PS4's on sales in its second financial year on the market. The company is now no longer expecting to be able to reach that level of supply, and is now forecasting 11.5 million sales for the year.
"Unfortunately," said CFO Hiroki Totoki in a Q3 earnings call, "due to limitations on the supply of components – especially semiconductiors – and an increase in delivery times resulting from the disruption of the global distribution supply chain, we have revised our FY21 unit sales forecast for PS5 hardware to 11.5 million units."
Totoki added that the supply constraints are likely to continue: "Limitations on the supply of components are expected to continue going forward, but we are continuing to exert every effort to meet the strong demand for PS5."
In an earnings call Q&A, Totoki explained that the company hopes to be able to "catch up" from the short-term impact of these shortages. Later, he said, "[We are working closely with] our partner companies supplying us with components – collaborating, negotiating and working with them closely. We hope we can make that happen, but in terms of [PS5], I think it's safe to say that we will continue to have supply disruption in terms of the components globally, because of the distribution problems and so on. So we can't say for sure what is exactly the demand for next year."
Totoki added that he thinks it's good for the company to maintain high sales targets in future, despite those issues.
Despite the lower-than-expected numbers in this financial year, PS5 has still seen major success. Sony reports that the console has now sold 17.3 million PS5s as of December 3, 2021. While hasn't been able to keep piece, PS5 outsold PS4 in its first financial year on sale, and had the fastest-selling console launch in US history.
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