Lets aim for the stars. I think they might over ship because there is a lot of momentum heading into 2021.
Japan slightly up YoY
Japan will be only slightly up since Nintendo is likely going to prioritize it for the Monster Hunter Rise launch coming up in March, and is lacking a reason to be extremely aggressive as the PS5 isn't exactly lighting the charts on fire. Currently, according to Famitsu they've shipped around 900K to Japan, which leaves 1.1M more in the upcoming holiday period.
NA & Europe up YoY considerably due to aggressive bundles and pricing for the holidays
With all the great value bundles across NA and European retailers, I think there will be substantial growth YoY there. Nintendo seems to be trying to take the wind away from the supply-constrained launches of its competitors and has already committed to manufacturing 30 million this year. As these are regions where Nintendo isn't a market leader at the moment they will be more aggressive with their pricing and bundles this holiday quarter.
Other markets driving huge YoY Growth
The main growth YoY will be the "Other" regions, Nintendo only launched the Switch in China in 2019 but most of Nintendo's titles aren't officially approved by the Chinese government because of the strict regulations in China. Ring Fit Adventure only launched this September and has been a major driver of hardware sales in the country. The other games thus far approved are NSMBU, MK8D and SMO.
The other new market Switch launched in was Brazil but I anticipate we will see big growth in places like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapour, and other developing markets due to the Switch's improved accessibility and global marketing reach.
With the growth of 150% YoY in the previous quarter from "Other" region, I think we will see similar growth in the final Quarter of the year. Last year Other amounted to around 10% of sales for Nintendo and this year I expect this to be >15%, making it very comparable to Japan's size in the overall shipments. I actually anticipate "Other" to receive a larger shipment than Japan this Quarter.
- Japan >2M
- North America >6M
- Europe >4.5M
- Other >2.25M
TOTAL: >14.75M
