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Sony Q4 2020 earnings report forecasts PS5 to cope with semiconductor shortage in 2021

Sony claims it has enough supplies to get through the fiscal year, but it's putting its sights on 2022 for big sales of the PS5.

TJ Denzer

April 28, 2021 8:03 AM

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As production attempts to catch up to the supermassive demand of consumer and commercial electronics in 2021, many outlets of the tech industry have come up against the shortage of semiconductors that aid in the assembly of many devices, including smartphones, consoles, PCs, and cars. Sony is not exempt from these issues. In its recent quarterly earnings report, it revealed that the PS5 is doing well since launch, but it is certainly affected by the shortage. The company has enough supply to just barely focus on keeping up with 2021 and will focus trying to achieve sales goals in the PS5’s second fiscal year in 2022.

Sony revealed this information in its recent Q4 2020 Earnings Release report posted on its investor relations website on April 28, 2021. According to the release, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said Sony has indeed been affected by factors such as the semiconductor shortage and Sony will focus on the PS5’s second fiscal year and a sales goal of 14.8 million units to overcome the sales of the PS4 in a similar timeframe. Despite this, the console has sold 7.8 million units since launch.

In the meantime, Totoki claimed Sony has enough components to deal with chip famine shortages throughout 2021, though it does not expect the situation will become better.

“Shortages of semiconductors have become an issue recently,” the report stated. “But, with the cooperation of our partners, we have already secured enough supply of logic semiconductors used in our image sensors to cover our production plan for this fiscal year.”

Indeed, PlayStation 5 consoles have already been hard to come by, as have Xbox Series X/S consoles. Though a part of that is also aftermarket sellers corralling large quantities of the systems for resale. Even so, it looks like Sony is going to skate by through 2021 with the current shortage and focus more of its energy on a stronger 2022.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.