Nintendo Switch Shipments Shrinking By 25% In 2019 According To Suppliers

Digitimes, a Taiwanese paper that has connections with Taiwanese component suppliers for Nintendo Switch, has published an interesting report.

Taiwanese component suppliers have told Digitimes that they expect shipments of the console to reduce by 25% to 30% in 2019. This is because Nintendo has decelerated its order pull-in since the second half of 2018. The trend is expected to continue through 2019 and suppliers estimate the Switch will sell between 14 and 15 million units in the entire year.

The report further explained Nintendo stores their hardware components at upstream supply chain. Nintendo orders them to be assembled and shipped depending on its inventory and channel sales.

Digitimes also claimed Nintendo is planning to release a cheaper model of the Switch in 2019, but did not elaborate any further.

Besides the 14 – 15 million unit forecast for 2019, the supply chain also reported that actual Switch shipments in 2018 were less than 20 million, even though Nintendo originally told suppliers they expect to order 24 million for the entire year. Nintendo is expected to put more focus on software development in 2019 to increase the Switch’s appeal. Upstream supply chain estimates put lifetime Switch sales at around 40 million as of January 2019.

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