In 2020, worldwide shipments of gaming PCs and monitors increased by 26.8%

gaming PCs and monitors

According to a study from industry tracker International Data Corporation, shipments of gaming PCs and monitors increased 26.8% year over year to 55 million units in 2020, owing primarily to lockdown-induced demand (IDC).

According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Gaming Tracker, gaming notebooks remained the biggest volume driver in a year marked by home restrictions.

Gaming notebooks grew a record 26.9% in 2020, despite display panel shortages for most of the year, as customers embraced their flexibility for both work and play.

Gaming displays, like PCs, hit new heights in 2020, with shipments reaching 14.3 million units, up more than 77% from the previous year.

Aside from the sheer scale, 2020 saw a number of significant events that could have an effect on future patterns.

For the first time, North America and Western Europe combined surpassed Asia/Pacific (including Japan) as the largest market for gaming PCs and monitors, owing to lockdown-induced demand.

Although crypto-mining may be partially to blame, Jitesh Ubrani, Research Manager for IDC’s Worldwide Mobile and Consumer Device Trackers, believes that the sheer demand for these goods and development in the shortages are more than likely due to a lack of players.

New GPUs, new games, added support for ray-tracing, and rising demand all contributed to a rise in average selling prices in 2020, which is expected to continue in 2021.

Looking forward, IDC expects the gaming business to remain a bright spot until the overall PC market recovers from the pandemic and returns to more natural replacement cycles.

Though gaming desktops will continue to fade in favour of notebooks, IDC predicts that notebooks and monitors will more than make up for their loss.

In 2021, IDC predicts that the number of gaming monitors would surpass that of gaming desktops for the first time.

According to IDC, the gaming monitor market will expand at a CAGR of more than 10% over the next five years. It goes on to say that it expects this trend to continue as global volumes hit 72.9 million in 2025, with a CAGR of 5.8%.

Monitors, including notebooks, faced panel part shortages and increased demand, according to Jay Chou, Research Manager for IDC’s Worldwide PC Monitor Tracker.

OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) must be prudent in allocating scarce capital, and meeting gaming show demand makes sense given the continued weakness in commercial buying and office occupancy in many markets. Gaming monitors are expected to take a greater share of the overall display market in the coming years, according to IDC.