Like many markets, gaming PC shipments will also decline in 2023, down 13.2% year-on-year to 44 million units. The overall PC industry also declined, but gaming monitors were a bright spot, growing throughout the year. The good news for manufacturers and consumers is that things are expected to get better in 2024.
According to IDC, shipments of desktop and laptop workstations fell 8.8% last year, the second-largest decline since the analyst firm began keeping records in 2008. At the same time, Gartner said that 2023 will be the worst year in the history of the entire PC industry, with shipments falling 14.8% year-on-year.
IDC analyzed various segments of the market in its latest report. While gaming PC shipments fell 13.2%, gaming monitors actually grew 20.3% in 2023. Digging deeper, shipments of advanced monitors with refresh rates of 165Hz or higher increased by approximately 13%, while high-performance monitors (144Hz to <165Hz) declined by 4%.
IDC predicts that gaming PCs will finally start to see growth in 2024 - mirroring growth seen in many other industries last year - albeit at a measly 1% rate, with laptops being the main driver. At the same time, gaming monitors will continue to maintain their upward momentum, growing by 13.6% for the full year.
Jitesh Ubrani, IDC mobile and consumer device tracking research manager, said that despite the continued economic downturn, gaming PC shipments still have some resilience due to continued growth in demand. He noted that prices are also trending upward as the high-end market remains strong. Ubrani believes this sector will remain healthy as dedicated wealthy buyers are less affected by the economy.
Jay Chou, research manager for IDC's Worldwide Client Device Tracking, said gaming monitors are growing faster than gaming PCs, thanks to falling prices and widespread adoption of certain specifications, including refresh rates above 165Hz, response times of 1 millisecond or less, and the move to 2560x1440 and higher resolutions.
Looking beyond this year, IDC believes that gaming PC shipments will reach 52 million units in 2028, and monitor shipments will reach 29.6 million units during the same period. The company predicts that with the reverse development of gaming PCs, the price of gaming monitors will decrease year by year, with the average selling price reaching US$1,101 due to the popularity of high-end graphics cards and laptops.
Finally, IDC writes that shipments of advanced GPUs will grow only 3% this year, while high-performance GPUs will decline. Both will be significantly improved in 2025 thanks to the emergence of the NVIDIA ARTX5000 series and AMD's RadeonRX8000 graphics cards.