Sony Playstation 4 sales rise to 53.4 million after the holidays

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Sony announced that it has sold 6.2 million units adding up to close 53.4 million in sales of its Playstation 4 game systems after the holiday rush has come and gone.

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(CNBC): The figure, calculated between 20 November and January 1, marks an almost 9 percent rise from the 5.7 million units it sold in roughly the same period a year ago. The last figures Sony gave were on December 7 when it said it had exceeded 50 million PS4 sales. It’s important to note that this was during the holiday period so included some of the sales that had happened.

PlayStation 4 software sales during the 2016 holiday period reached more than 50.4 million copies globally through digital downloads of games or those sold in retail stores.

“We will aim to continue the momentum this year by broadening the PS4 title portfolio, further enriching the revolutionary gaming experiences on PlayStation VR and high quality gaming experience on PlayStation4 Pro*6, while also expanding network services,” Andrew House, global chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the company’s gaming business, said in a press release on Thursday.

The PS4 console, released in November 2013, has become an increasingly important device for Sony as it struggles to grow in other areas such as smartphones. Gaming is one of its strongest businesses and the PS4 currently leads offerings from rivals Nintendo and Microsoft in terms of sales.

Sony is keen to keep momentum strong with its PS4 and last year released a slimmed-down version of the console as well as the PS4 Pro, a more powerful model. Sony also unveiled the PlayStation VR – a virtual reality headset that is compatible with the PS4. The Japanese electronics giant has not given any sales figures for the device, but Jim Ryan, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe told CNBC in October that it could sell “hundreds of thousands”.

But Sony will face heightened competition in the coming year with Nintendo’s latest console, Switch coming out in March, and Microsoft’snext Xbox slated for release later this year.