Lifetime PS4 hardware shipments hit 100 million

Lifetime PS4 hardware shipments (consoles sold in to retailers) have reportedly topped 100 million units worldwide.

The latest shipment figures were released as part of Sony‘s first quarter financial results, which cover the three months ended June 30, 2019, according to Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at Niko Partners.

The company shipped 3.2 million PS4 units to retailers in its first quarter, matching the total from the first quarter of the previous financial year.

According to the Ahmad, PS4 has shipped 100 million units faster than any previous home console.

Sony announced Tuesday that it has downwardly revised its annual hardware shipment forecast. It now expects to ship 15 million PS4 units in the current fiscal year ending March 2020, down from 16 million forecast in April.

First quarter PS4 software shipments were 42.9 million units, taking lifetime shipments to 973.6 million units. Digital game sales accounted for 53% of the quarterly total, up from 43% a year earlier and from 45% in the prior quarter.

Sony didn’t provide a PS4 software sales forecast for the current fiscal year, or updated sales figures for key first-party games.

PlayStation Plus subscribers stood at 36.2 million as of June 30, up from 33.9 million a year earlier, but down slightly from 36.4 million at the end of its fiscal year in March, when the figure was last reported.

First quarter sales for Sony’s Game and Network Services segment, which house the PlayStation division, declined 3% year-over-year to ¥457.5 billion ($4.21 billion), while operating income fell nearly 12% to ¥73.8 billion ($679 million).

For the current fiscal year, Sony downwardly revised its PlayStation division sales forecast by 4% to ¥2.2 trillion ($20.25 billion), due to lower than expected PS4 hardware sales and third-party software sales. Its full-year operating income outlook of ¥280 billion ($2.6 billion) remains unchanged from April.

PS4 had sold through more than 91.6 million units to consumers globally as of December 31, 2018, according to Sony.

While PlayStation 5 is expected to arrive in 2020, the platform holder recently outlined the critical role PS4 still has to play in the years to come.

It said in May that PS4 will continue to be PlayStation’s “engine of engagement and profitability for the next three years” and “provide the fertile early adopter gamer base critical for next gen success”.