Nintendo Switch Stock Update: Restocks Shipped by Plane But Still Can't Keep Up With Demand
It has been revealed that Nintendo was previously compelled to ship Nintendo Switch restocks by an airplane but that did not help them to meet the overwhelming market demands.
Shipping by air might be faster than doing it via sea freight but that speed comes with a high price. However, a company representative told Wall Street Journal that Nintendo was obliged to take the more costly way of shipping last March after demands from all over the world for their latest console just went through the roof.
By April, the company went back to shipping by sea freight.
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"We carried some of the Switches by plane in March to serve our customers more promptly," the Nintendo representative shared. Analyst Hideki Yasuda of Ace Research Institute also commented that shipping by air can put about $45 additional cost on each unit.
However, it might be worth it on the part of Nintendo. It was also mentioned that the Japanese video game company was originally preparing two million units of the Nintendo Switch for the first month since its retail release on March 3 but ended up shipping 2.74 million.
While the Nintendo spokesperson did not give specifics about the airplane shipment, some analysts got information that the said planes took off from factories in China and went on to the United States and Europe, according to Wall Street Journal.
On the other hand, Nintendo seems to be having a habit of exceeding their own expectations in terms of the demands they got on some consoles that they previously launched. Apart from the hybrid portable Switch, Nintendo also had good sales records — with 1.5 million units shipped as of early February — after announcing the NES Classic Edition in November 2016.
However, Nintendo needed to immediately discontinue the product, saying (via IGN): "NES Classic Edition wasn't intended to be an ongoing, long-term product. However, due to high demand, we did add extra shipments to our original plans."
Meanwhile, as for the Nintendo Switch, the company's forecast is they are going to sell as much as 10 million units within the first fiscal year of its release. However, some analysts think it can go higher. Macquarie Capital Securities analyst David Gibson speculates that the number only "represents a starting point" and that the Nintendo Switch's sales can go up to 14.5 million units.
