Ahmed Sherif
Research expert covering IT services and gaming hardware
Picture a world where nearly two billion people are united by a single passion – PC gaming. PC gaming is not only a passion for its gamers, but also a booming market that has been growing strongly in recent years. In 2024, the combined market revenue for gaming PCs and laptops was projected to reach 52 billion U.S. dollars. Interestingly, gaming laptops held a larger market share compared to PCs. Moreover, the community of PC gamers has also been expanding consistently. The number of PC gamers was estimated to exceed 1.85 billion worldwide by 2024. In the same year, Western Europe and China were the top regions in PC gaming hardware revenues, with 16.7 billion U.S. dollars and 16.4 billion U.S. dollars, respectively.
Given these trends, the PC gaming hardware market is expected to continue its upward trajectory in the foreseeable future with no signs of slowing down. GPUs are poised to continue leading the PC gaming hardware market by a significant margin due to the increasing demand for high-quality graphics in games.
GPUs lead the game
Unlike console gamers who rely on pre-packaged systems, many PC gamers take matters into their own hands, crafting custom rigs each with their unique aesthetics and gaming needs. The global gaming hardware market is largely driven by GPUs and CPUs, which unsurprisingly hold the largest market shares. In 2024, they boasted impressive market sizes of 73 billion U.S. dollars and 34 billion U.S. dollars, respectively. This dominance can be attributed to the growing demand from customers worldwide for high-performance gaming hardware equipped with powerful processors, high-resolution displays, and fast refresh rates to enhance their gaming experience. This growth is reflected in the rising average revenue per unit (ARPU) of gaming hardware worldwide each year. The main players in the GPU industry globally are Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. In addition to GPUs and CPUs, other significant contributors to the market included gaming monitors, headsets, and speakers.XR is gaining momentum, but can it sustain it?
One piece of hardware that has been gaining popularity in recent years is extended reality (XR) technology with the likes of PSVR2 and Meta Quest 3. In 2023, the XR market surged by an impressive 40 percentage points, and expectations remain high with a projected growth of over 25 percent in 2024. Among gamers using VR headsets on the popular PC gaming platform Steam, over 41 percent reported using the Oculus Quest 2, while over 19 percent reported using Valve Index HMD. Quest 2’s popularity among PC gamers comes as no shock considering that Meta has been dominating the XR headset market since 2021. Despite XR’s rising popularity, especially with the release of the Apple Vision Pro, its success in penetrating the market remains yet to be seen, given the high unit price and limited availability of XR-compatible games.Given these trends, the PC gaming hardware market is expected to continue its upward trajectory in the foreseeable future with no signs of slowing down. GPUs are poised to continue leading the PC gaming hardware market by a significant margin due to the increasing demand for high-quality graphics in games.
