The Nintendo stockpiling myth, and why it is wrong.

[Just_Ben]

I can't here the myth of Nintendo stockpiling that much anymore. Really I don't. Neither for Christmass, nor for "Brawl". This week the Wii is down, last week it was up, I bet my ass of its up next week again. Why? Because of shipments. It seems that at the moment, Nintendo has not a stream lined shipment, they just jump from week to week. This is mostly a copy and past from what I posted in another forum, explaining why it is a myth, and what to expect the Wii will sell in Feb and March in the US.  

So lets gets started:

The christmas stockpiling myth: They just don't did it last year, at least not to that extend people believe it. Lets go by the numbers. We now they produce more than 1.8 Million/month since september (so says Nintendo). More than means, they produce 1.8 Million for sure and they can plan, if they produce more, its because they don't have less reject due to defect than expected. Nintendo is alway lowbaling its numbers. So I think 2 Million is the right number. Lets take 1.9 Million. Since they do that since August/September we don't have to take shipment times (for know) into account. So they produce 5.7 Million/quarter.

Nintendo shipped about 6.9 Million Units in that quarter. So we have 1.2 Million Units to explain, don't we? I have an explanation for that, an easy one: They flew them in. Normally it takes the Wii 20-25 days from production to shelf (According to Reggi), at least in the US. Flying them saves around 17 days. What does that mean in production? Well half of a month, or 0.95 Million. Know we have only 250 thousand missing. If we had gone by 2 Million production a month, we would end up with nothing missing, 100k produced more.

So know, the forecast for this quarter. Nintendo is forecasting 4.2 Million Wii's shipped. We can safely assume thats the a guaranteed number, not a realistic number (It would be embarrassing to raise the forecast and then not reaching it). So it is save to assume 4.5 Million+ this quarter shipped. (Do you see thats lower than production? Thats why my "fly them in" calculation can't be that far off!). No we need to know how much will get each territory. In the first 9 month of the fiscal, NA was getting 45% off the supply. So lets assume its 33% this time. That means 1.5 Million+.
In January NA got most likely around 300k. So we have 1.2 Million Wii still missing. Where will they end up, if not sold or on the shelf (because supply>demand) or sold? Since all evidence I have lead to the conclusion that the Wii is sold out in NA, period, I go by what is shipped is sold.

Again 1.2 Million Wii's will be shipped to NA (US+CA) in Feb and March. And thats a "at least", 1.4 Million seems more realistic.

The shipment is just not streamlined at the  moment, thats all. It will jump up and down for a while, so it seems.

Everything explained. No stockpiling what so ever. Am I right? Well we will see next week. If the Wii pulls 150k or more, I am right. That week just a "bigger" shipment arrived. Thats all :)