Switch breaks 139.36 million units, Switch shipments drop to historic holiday low

The Nintendo Switch family has now shipped nearly 140 million units worldwide, further cemented it as the third best-selling video games hardware ever made.

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Despite being on the market for 7 and a quarter fiscal years, the Switch is still selling pretty strongly for such an older system. Nintendo's latest financial report delivers updated figures for the platform and confirms some staggering lifetime sales.

According to the figures, total Switch shipments have reached 139.36 million as of December 2023. Nintendo shipped 6.9 million consoles during Q3 FY24 (Oct - Dec 2023), down 58% year-over-year from holiday 2022. In fact, these are the lowest holiday shipment numbers that the Switch platform has ever seen.

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"Although unit sales decreased year-on-year, sales have been stable given the fact that the platform is in its seventh year, and the results were generally in line with our expectations," Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said in the results.

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The split composition of the Q3 shipments looks like this:

• Switch - 2.15 million
• Switch Lite - 1.27 million
• Switch OLED - 3.48 million

Nintendo managed to rake in over $2 billion revenue from its 6.9 million Switch shipments throughout holiday 2023.

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When it comes to total Switch platform sales by console, that split would look like this (note that the Switch Lite and OLED models now have the same lifetime shipments):

• Switch - 92.98 million
• Switch Lite - 23.19 million
• Switch OLED - 23.19 million

Nintendo is expected to announce its next console sometime soon, with a potential release in the back-half of 2024 (maybe during holiday 2024). The company is notoriously tight-lipped and quiet about its business plans, so we'll have to wait and see what happens next.

The games firm has upwardly adjusted its Switch shipment target from 15 million units to 15.5 million. This implies Nintendo expects to ship 1.76 million Switch consoles in Q4'24, which would be the lowest-ever Q4 shipments in the Switch's lifespan.

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