Sony shipped 17.3 million PlayStation 5 consoles by the end of 2021

It's not news that PlayStation 5 consoles are selling like hotcakes. By the end of July 2021, Sony had already shipped over 10 million units, making it the fastest-selling console ever. Still, the sales numbers didn't stop there, as the Japanese company has now announced that its console has sold over 17.3 million units.

According to @ZhugeEX, this increase comes from the 3.9 million PS5 consoles sold during Q3 of Sony's fiscal year (Q4 of the civil year). Although these results seem solid, Sony sold fewer consoles than during the same timeframe last year. During the PS4 generation, Sony was able to sell 6.4 million units in that timeframe too, which goes to show the impact of the current chip shortage and supply issues.

The PlayStation 5 has sold in 17.3 million units as of December 31, 2021 according to Sony.

This compares to 20.2 million for PlayStation 4 in the same timeframe, when launch aligned

PS5 has faced significant supply issues. It has been unable to keep up with PS4 despite demand pic.twitter.com/Nz60oElCyK

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) February 2, 2022

Sony, like many other tech companies, has been affected by supply issues due to the ongoing worldwide chip shortage. The lack of components to manufacture PS5 systems led Sony to continue producing PS4 consoles, despite initial plans to stop assembling them in 2021.

In related news, Sony stated that PlayStation Plus subscribers have slightly increased during the same period, from 47.4 million to 48 million.

KitGuru says: As the chip shortage starts to ease up, we expect Sony to catch up with the demand for its latest console. Of course, that should still take a while, but at least it seems we're going in the right direction now.

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