So either the Wii is not sold out in Japan, or it doesn't happen that much. We have 3 more or less accurate independent tracker for japan. And as far as I see it, the Wii is pulling 90-105k a week (even brawl week, which let me believe its still sold out in Japan). If it continues in Feb that way, it leaves more than 300k Wii missing, they got to go somewhere. Either Europe or the U.S.. Another hint that I am having is that we know from Australia and to some extend from Europe (Holland) that Nintendo shipped a good amount of Wiis end of January/Begin of February. I think the same is happening in the US. Most of Jan sales for the Wii should be last week of tracking, and the next week there should be more.
Well, I say 450 thousand is the minimum they will ship for February. If so, than we should have over 750k in march, which would be totally crazy.
Also, thanks for the detailed information. This type of engagement on TSE is what I like to see. Whether I am right or not doesn't really matter to me, my concern is that our market is right. We all can admit that January surprised us all, lets hope we don't see a repeat. But if your figures are right, than we probably won't.
I agree with your logic and I am using the same numbers on my end. I am just assuming a greater % being allocated to Japan to better support some of the new releases, essentially repeating the trend we seen in January. Then when the end of Feb rolls around, we will likely see more units shipped in for the SSBB release. The only flaw in this logic is that the supply being sent at the end of February (still falling in the NPD month) could propel sales above the 400k mark.
I can see there is strong support for being long above the 400k mark and I am not one to go against the wisdom of this crowd.
Since you are the "official" SE interpreter, I will do one thing for you I normally don't do that much anymore. I explain my point of view in detail.
First off: The christmas stockpiling myth: They just don't did it last year, at least not to that extend people believe it. Lets go by the numbers. We now they produce more than 1.8 Million/month since september (so says Nintendo). More than means, they produce 1.8 Million for sure and they can plan, if they produce more, its because they don't have less reject due to defect than expected. Nintendo is alway lowbaling its numbers. So I think 2 Million is the right number. Lets take 1.9 Million. Since they do that since August/September we don't have to take shipment times (for know) into account. So they produce 5.7 Million/quarter.
Nintendo shipped about 6.9 Million Units in that quarter. So we have 1.2 Million Units to explain, don't we? I have an explanation for that, an easy one: They flew them in. Normally it takes the Wii 20-25 days from production to shelf (According to Reggi), at least in the US. Flying them saves around 17 days. What does that mean in production? Well half of a month, or 0.95 Million. Know we have only 250 thousand missing. If we had gone by 2 Million production a month, we would end up with, nothing missing, 100k produced more.
So know, the forecast for this quarter. Nintendo is forecasting 4.2 Million Wii's shipped. We can safely assume thats the a guaranteed number, not a realistic number (It would be embarrassing to raise the forecast and then not reaching it). So it is save to assume 4.5 Million+ this quarter shipped. (Do you see thats lower than production? Thats why my "fly them in" calculation can't be that far of!). No we need to know how much will get the US (since we are talking about US). In the first 9 month of the fiscal, NA was getting 45% off the supply. So lets assume its 33% this time. That means 1.5 Million+. In January NA got most likely around 300k. So we have 1.2 Million Wii still missing. Where will they end up, if not sold or on the shelf (because supply>demand)? A magic whole in Canada? (was that a little to sarcastic).
Again 1.2 Million Wii's will be shipped to NA (US+CA) in Feb and March. And thats a "at least", 1.4 Million seems more realistic.
I wasn't. I had a good short, and if I would have more money available, it would have been bigger.
300 thousand was my buy out point, because I figured it would be around that, because of supply. But Jan and Feb is a complete different storry. Look at last year DS.
Now don't you believe the demand isn't there, or do you believe the supply isn't there? I say supply will be there. Demand however, well the the Wii is sold out since launch. So before I don't see amazon.com with longer than 1 hour Wii's in stock, I just believe the demand is there. What gets shipped, gets sold.
@kspraydad, I agree totally and even with supply constraints, I do not see Wii sales going lower than January sales or below 300,000 or 30DKP. As a matter of fact, I have currently have a bullish position because of this low IPO 2 price (and I have noticed several other traders also do).
Just for comparison: April 2007 Wii sales were 360,000 or 36DKP.
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So either the Wii is not sold out in Japan, or it doesn't happen that much. We have 3 more or less accurate independent tracker for japan. And as far as I see it, the Wii is pulling 90-105k a week (even brawl week, which let me believe its still sold out in Japan). If it continues in Feb that way, it leaves more than 300k Wii missing, they got to go somewhere. Either Europe or the U.S.. Another hint that I am having is that we know from Australia and to some extend from Europe (Holland) that Nintendo shipped a good amount of Wiis end of January/Begin of February. I think the same is happening in the US. Most of Jan sales for the Wii should be last week of tracking, and the next week there should be more.
Well, I say 450 thousand is the minimum they will ship for February. If so, than we should have over 750k in march, which would be totally crazy.
We will see :)