Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has apologised for recent Nintendo Switch stock shortages, assuring that the portable home console’s production “has mostly recovered.”
This will see the stock shortages continue to be alleviated in the coming months, but, while there is an expectation that production will “return to normal in the summer” demand for the console “remains high” worldwide.
“We would like to express our apologies for the inconvenience experienced by many consumers due to a shortage of Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite. There have been continued on-and-off shortages throughout markets worldwide, specifically since the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons (in March) through today,” Furukawa explained at the 80th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders.
“Console production has mostly recovered. However, because there is some amount of lag between when a product is manufactured and when it arrives on retailer shelves and worldwide demand for Nintendo Switch remains high, please understand that we cannot currently answer when the shortages will be resolved.”
In response to a separate question, he added: “regarding production, factory operations in China were temporarily halted in February, but production there started to recover in March. Since then, the spread of COVID-19 throughout the world has affected the procurement of parts required for manufacturing, causing delays in production of Nintendo Switch hardware through May.
“Production has largely recovered now, and we estimate that the volume of products shipped will increase going forward. As we mentioned during our announcement of the financial results in May, our current expectation is that production activities will be able to return to normal in the summer.”
