Products of Nintendo Switch, a video game console developed by Nintendo, are displayed at a retail outlet in Seoul on Sept. 17, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Switch, a video game console developed by Japan’s Nintendo, is enjoying explosive growth in sales in South Korea due to the rapid increase in the number of users since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to IR data released by Daewon Media Co., a South Korean distributor of Nintendo games and software, sales of the Nintendo Switch totaled 90,964 units in the second quarter of this year, up 106.4 percent from a year ago.
During the same period, the sales of Switch game titles reached 325,545 units, up 189.7 percent from a year before.
In the first half of this year, sales of Nintendo Switch and game titles stood at 173,812 units and 613,135 units, respectively, up 61.5 percent and 107.7 percent year on year.
The actual cumulative sales of Nintendo Switch and game titles are estimated to be about two times higher than such figures since the products selling at large discount stores are supplied directly by Nintendo Korea.
In particular, the sales of Nintendo Switch picked up from the second quarter of this year thanks to the popularity of the brand-new game Animal Crossing: New Horizons that was released on March 20.
TMON Inc., one of the country’s major e-commerce operators, held a promotional event in May selling ten units of the Nintendo Switch packaged with the Animal Crossing game. It received 562,088 phone calls in only one hour.
The number of Nintendo Switch consoles and game titles sold through Daewon Media since it was released until the second quarter of this year totaled 596,682 units and 1,769,937 units, respectively.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
