The Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) market for gaming desktops and notebooks maintained its strength in the third quarter of 2020, growing 29.7% YoY and totaling 2.4 million units, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). This is expected to continue into the holiday season, with anticipated growth of 25.1% YoY in the fourth quarter of 2020, and into the first quarter of 2021 with growth of 27.2% YoY.
Momentum will stabilize slightly thereafter, but long-term growth is still expected. By the end of 2024 the PC gaming market is forecast to increase to 9.4 million units, with a four-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.2%.
In Western Europe, going into the final quarter of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to drum up demand for mobile form factors. This is particularly the case within single-device households seeking new devices to enable multiple users to study, consume media, or game. Notebook gaming will benefit primarily, but there will also be demand for higher-end gaming desktops. In 2020Q4, notebook gaming growth will match that seen at the beginning of the pandemic (+41.0% YoY), and desktop gaming will remain stable, growing 7.8% YoY.
“Demand remains exceptionally strong, so stock availability will once again inhibit the full growth potential of PC gaming in 2020Q4,” said Liam Hall, senior research analyst, IDC Western Europe. “Nevertheless, profit margin prioritization will mean that gaming devices, particularly premium devices, will be less impacted than the broader, entry-level consumer PC business.”
The new generation of powerful and attractively priced GPUs and CPUs have been very popular, though supplies have been scarce, and they will incentivize device upgrades among more hardcore gamers. But games, as well as hardware, will have a strong impact on gaming demand this holiday season.
“Long-awaited and majorly hyped games are finally hitting the market in 2020Q4, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and CyberPunk 2077,” said Hall. “The release of these high-performance triple A titles acts as a catalyst for new gamers to enter the market and for existing gamers to upgrade their rigs in order to experience the games at their highest possible specifications.”
The PC gaming market in the CEE and MEA regions continues to report very strong, double-digit YoY growth in units. In the third quarter of 2020 the regions reported an annual increase of 50.3% and 39.2% respectively.
“Demand continues to be driven by the prolonged staying-at-home and consequent need for entertainment,” said Nikolina Jurisic, senior research manager. “Also, low availability of entry-level notebooks on the market, caused by supply issues, benefitted higher-priced gaming notebooks and desktop shipments. Gaming demand is expected to remain strong in the next two quarters across both regions with social distancing measures still in place. The release of new, powerful, and attractively priced processors in the past few months, the rollout of new gaming titles, and consumers prioritizing PC device purchases to be able to manage multiple in-house tasks will propel demand.”
