Parts shortages slow PS5 sales, but Sony projects a huge 2022-23 fiscal year

Time Stamp: May 10, 2022 8:31 AM

The PlayStation 5 failed to hit sales expectations in the fiscal year that ended in March 2022, as parts shortages meant they could only ship 11.5 million consoles compared to the initial target of 14.8 million. However, for the year ahead, they now project a massive step up to around 18 million units for FY22 ending in March 2023, and even that won’t be able to fully meet consumer demand.

In total, Sony has now shipped 19.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles, a figure that has clearly been affected by the global semiconductor shortage that has gripped the tech industry ever since 2020. In July 2021, Sony was able to crown the PS5 as their fastest console to sell 10 million units, but expectations were that this figure would more than double through the rest of the financial year. Unfortunately, they had to reduce their forecasts through the end of 2021, and the console has now slipped back behind the PS4’s rate of sales – it had reached 20.2M by a comparable point in time.

All of this has meant that the PlayStation division’s earnings have been relatively flat from FY20 to FY21, but with a forecast boom in console sales, Sony expect earnings to leap up considerably as well, to the tune of 34%. Projecting roughly 18 million consoles produced (and sold) over the coming year would be huge for the PS5, not far off matching the 20 million the PS4 sold from 2016-17.

Sony can also confidently state that they remain the market leader for the new generation of consoles. Microsoft has not released sales figures since the start of the Xbox One generation, but we do have isolated reports and region-specific sales to look at. VGChartz has put the Xbox Series X|S combined sales at 13.87 million in April, a report which was seemingly endorsed by GM of Xbox Games Marketing Aaron Greeberg, as he retweeted it. 100% accurate? Maybe not, but this seems to be in the right ballpark considering that previous reports suggested they had reached 12 million by the end of 2021. It also doesn’t tell us the split between the two console tiers, but we all know that Microsoft is about getting thumbs on any gamepad they possibly can, thanks to game streaming and more.

Source: Sony

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