Sales of graphics cards grew by 30% in 2021, despite the crisis and the lack of components

The graphics card market has grown to more than $50 billion in shipments by AMD and Nvidia partners in 2021, according to a report recently published by Graphic Speak. More than 50 million graphics cards (produced by partners) were shipped during the year, and the market as a whole saw shipments increase by almost 30% during the year.

AMD and Nvidia have reported record revenue in the gaming graphics card segment in recent quarters. Desktop GPU shipments from AMD in the fourth quarter of 2021 grew 12.4% from the previous quarter and 35.7% year over year. Nvidia’s shipments increased 0.5% quarter-over-quarter and 27.7% compared to Q4 2020, maintaining dominance with a 77.2% market share.

What cannot be known exactly is how many of these cards ended up being used for cryptocurrency mining.

With the entire year of 2021 analyzed and accounted for, the graphics card market has reached $51.8 billion. This value represents an annual growth of 29.5%. In terms of the number of graphics cards shipped, the report estimates that 42 million graphics cards hit the market in 2020, rising to more than 50 million last year (2021). These numbers suggest that the average selling price of a graphics card in 2021 was over $1,000.

This revenue increase may be very nice for the red and green team and their partners, but the industry could do better in terms of units, since for example, 116 million graphics cards were sold in 1998. Of course, the average price At that time it was much lower.

AMD seems to have done very well in 2021. Total shipments of desktop graphics card units from its partners increased 12.4% quarterly and 35.7% year over year.

Graphics card sales grew 30% in 2021

However, Nvidia remains extremely dominant with a 77.2% market share through 2021, although its gains have not been as impressive. Its quarterly unit shipments were up 0.5% and 27.7% from the prior year quarter.

In 2022 Intel will enter the desktop GPU market at a point where the market could see a drop in saless because of crypto mining and lockdowns caused by the pandemic. If that’s the case, the blue team may not be as aggressive as expected in the graphics card market.

Cryptocurrency miners may still be looking to acquire cards, but supply may be catching up with demand. Let’s hope that’s the case, as GPU prices in general are still around 50% (or more) above MSRP (launch price).