Tough Year Ahead For Gaming PC, Monitor Sector: IDC

Two years of unprecedented growth during the pandemic lead to a sharp drop in shipments last year that will continue throughout 2023.

This is according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Gaming Tracker, which shows that worldwide gaming PC shipments declined 6.4 per cent, while gaming monitors declined 7.1 per cent year-on-year.

44.9 million gaming PCs and 17.3 million gaming monitors were shipped during the year.

“Excess inventory carried over from 2022 is leading to discounting of older generation systems while also hampering re-orders of the latest generation of gaming PCs,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers.

“The vast supply of add-in boards in the secondary GPU market further compounds the issue as it helps prolong the life of existing gaming desktops and suppresses demand for new systems.

“The excessive power requirements of the latest GPUs is hampering the growth of both new gaming desktops and notebooks as it tips the scales of performance per dollar in favor of last year’s models while the rise of mobile and handheld gaming is also affecting gamers’ share of wallet,” continued Ubrani.

“Gaming monitors contracted last year, the first-ever decline in shipments since IDC began tracking this market in 2016,” adds Jay Chou, research manager for IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker.

“There was a phenomenal buildup of stock so inventories will need at least a couple more quarters to return to normal. Beyond the short term, we remain optimistic. A gaming monitor offers a relatively inexpensive way to improve the gaming experience and with new developments forthcoming, we still expect a recovery in the latter part of 2023.”

Despite the short term pain, the total gaming PCs and monitors market is expected to grow from 58.8 million this year, to 75.1 million by 2027.