Sony has shipped 19.3m PS5s, missing its initial second-year target by over 3m

Sony has announced that it shipped 2 million PlayStation 5 consoles during Q4 of its fiscal year, bringing the total number of consoles shipped to 19.3 million.

At 11.5 million PS5 consoles shipped during the FY21 financial year, it means Sony missed its initial target of 14.8 million consoles by over 3 million units.

Sony had targeted shipping more PS5s during the console’s second FY than the 14.8m PS4 managed during the same period. However, it had warned last year that supply chain issues would make this difficult.

However, the company said on Tuesday it expects to sell significantly more PS5 consoles during its current fiscal year ending March 2023, at around 18 million units. Sony said it felt “very comfortable” it could achieve the target.

Meanwhile, just 100,000 PS4 consoles were shipped to retailers during the three months ending March 31, bringing total shipments to around 117 million.

The company also revealed that as of the end of March 2022, 47.4 million users were subscribed to PlayStation Plus, down slightly from 47.6 million during the same period of the previous fiscal year. Monthly active users were also down at 106m (compared to 109m in FY20).

PS5 and PS4 first-party game sales were up a massive 84% during Q4, jumping from 7.9 million last year to 14.5 million in FY21. The ratio of downloaded software fell slightly from 79% to 71% during the quarter, but it was up 1% overall for the whole FY.

Sales were up 3% for the year at 83.5bn yen, which Sony credits partly to the impact of foreign exchange rates and an increase in hardware sales.

Operating income was essentially flat, however, which the company partly attributed to decreases in losses from PS5’s price point compared to manufacturing costs.

Looking forward, Sony expects sales for its game and network business to increase significantly (34%) during its current fiscal year, FY22, thanks to an increase in hardware sales and third-party games.

Operating income is forecast to decrease, however, due to increased costs in game development at its existing studios, as well as costs associated with the acquisition of Bungie.