Sony says it’s secured enough components to hit 22m PlayStation 5 sales goal

Sony claims it’s secured enough components to put 12 million more PlayStation 5 consoles into the market during its current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2022.

Speaking during a web call on Thursday (transcribed by VGC), CFO Hiroki Totoki claimed that Sony has secured enough semiconductors – which have been in short supply during the pandemic – to achieve its fiscal year target of selling 14.8 million PS5s.

“The shortage of semiconductors has impacts in various areas and through various measures, we have been taking some action,” he said.

“For PS5, the target has been set for the number of units to be sold this year, and we have secured the number of chips that is necessary to achieve that. Regarding the supply of semiconductors, we are not concerned.”

In Sony’s previous earnings call in April, Totoki had said that Sony did not expect to completely resolve supply issues that have seen PS5 widely sold out since launch.

The exec said at the time that Sony was considering various solutions to help it cope with the global shortage of hardware components, including potentially altering hardware designs or sourcing secondary suppliers.

The console remains hard to find nine months after its launch last November, with each new batch of systems selling out almost instantly.

While it is unlikely that Sony’s news will change this in the short term, the hope is that by securing these semiconductors it will eventually be able to produce enough supply to meet demand.

Last month it appeared that Sony is indeed planning to roll out revised PlayStation 5 hardware, after a new version of the PS5 Digital Edition console was detailed in an official Japanese product manual shows that the updated hardware model (CFI-1100B) and 300g less weight than the launch version.

Sony has said it hopes PS5 shipments in its FY2021 (April 2021 to March 2022) will surpass the 14.8 million PS4s shipped during the same stage of that console’s lifecycle in Sony’s FY2014. This would bring total PS5 sales to 22.6 million units.

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The company recently claimed that PlayStation 5 had become Sony’s fastest-selling console after topping 10 million sales globally. The console hit the milestone on July 18, about eight months after its launch on November 12, 2020.

7.8 million of those PS5 sales were recorded during Sony’s previous fiscal year, meaning it has around 12 million of its current FY target left to go.