Nintendo Switch sales decline 20% as chip scarcities continue

Nintendo Switch console sales are down 20% year-on-year, and Nintendo's blaming a shortage of parts for why.

As announced earlier today on May 10 as part of the Nintendo's 2021 fiscal year financial report, the Nintendo Switch has sold a total of roughly 23 million units worldwide over the past 12 months. That's an impressive figure, but it's actually down 20% when compared to the same period the year before.

"Sales this fiscal year were affected by shortages of semiconductor components and other parts, resulting in a 20.0% decrease year-on-year," the financial report reads. Nintendo is pretty resolute about the console's performance overall however, writing that the line-up of the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch OLED models contributed to "stable performance."

Nintendo Switch models have been increasingly hard to come by over the past 12 months or so, and that's just looking at the base model of the 2017 console. The OLED and Lite models of the console have been damn-near impossible to find a large amount of the time, with resellers scooping up stock and then selling the consoles on for profit later on.

Nintendo has actually lowered its sales figures for the Nintendo Switch console for the upcoming fiscal year. Whereas the console sold though 23 million units over the past year, the company expects a total of 21 million units sold over the next 12 months, meaning there's an expected drop-off in production yet to come. Considering the chip scarcity situation over the past two years, perhaps that's not a huge surprise.

The Nintendo Switch was in the "middle of its lifecycle" as of earlier this year in February 2022.