Worldwide Wii Sales

Mr. Iwata stated elsewhere in his presentation that Wii hardware sales in Europe had reached 10.4 million units. Pulling together the weekly data shown above, sales figures from other regions, and shipment figures, we can arrive at a snapshot of Wii sales around the world at the end of 2007 and at the end of the third quarter of 2008.

The Wii is undergoing an extraordinary period of growth in almost all regions – around 70% in the past nine months alone. Only Japan lags behind, although there the growth rate is still quite high, around 50%.

Here's one very interesting tidbit: Nintendo's European year-to-date figures are given in two different places in the presentation, once referring to all of Europe and once referring to just the U.K., Germany, France, and Spain markets.

From these figures, and data given in Nintendo's April 2008 presentation, we can estimate the following distribution of Wii sales throughout Europe as of the end of 2007.

Figures for other months in which the data can be similarly analyzed appear to demonstrate an interesting rule of thumb that may be helpful in future estimates of the size of the Wii hardware market in Europe.

The rule is that the European Wii market is divided into three roughly equal submarkets: the first is the U.K., the second is Germany plus France, and the third is everyone else.

Finally, it is instructive to see where Wii hardware has ended up around the globe.

As of the end of the third quarter of 2008, around 36% of all Wii hardware has been sold to consumers in the United States.

The entire European market represents the next largest group, with 30% of all Wii hardware, followed by Japan at 20%, and the rest of the Americas with 8%. All other territories have been grouped under the heading Other and represent only 6% of all Wii consumers.