Note that Sony is using the term “shipped” as opposed to “sold”. This is because shipping units means that they could be sending them off to various retailers who will then sell the console. However since retailers usually order based on the demand that they are seeing, sometimes the number of units sold and shipped aren’t too far apart.
According to Sony, they claim that 20 million PS4 units were shipped in the fiscal year of 2016 which ran from the 1st of April, 2016 to the 31st of March, 2017. The company is also predicting that they will be able to ship an additional 18 million PS4s in the fiscal year of 2017 which kicked off earlier this month and will run to March 31, 2018.
Assuming that is the case, Sony will be looking at close to 80 million PS4s shipped worldwide next year. Microsoft has yet to release their figures so we’re not sure where they stand, but last we heard the Nintendo Switch managed close to 3 million and are predicting an additional 10 million within its first year.