After the better part of two years of declining sales after the gaming PC boom during the COVID pandemic, PC sales are finally on the rise again. The first three months (Q1) of 2024 saw a 1.5% rise in PC sales compared to the same period last year, marking a turn in fortunes for our favorite gaming platform.
During the pandemic years, PC gaming hardware saw a huge boom that, along with high demand from auto makers and mobile phone manufacturers, saw demand for PC parts soar and prices rise too. Infamously, prices of the best graphics cards skyrocketed, with so-called scalpers snapping up stock whenever it appeared at MSRP on retail websites, and reselling the cards sometimes with over 100% markups.
As such, the drop in demand that followed the opening up of nations again to travel and general human interaction has been welcome in many ways, with stock of products readily available and prices settling down. However, this drop in sales also has knock-on effects for companies and their employees, with many people in the industry worried about a continued downturn.
It’s positive news, then, to see from this report that, while Q1 2024 may have only had a 1.5% rise compared to the first period on record, at least the situation is now moving in the right direction.
These encouraging sales figures come courtesy of the preliminary findings of the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. This register of PC sales has previously noted that Q1 2023 saw the biggest drop in year-on-year PC sales on record, with a huge 28.7% drop compared to Q1 2022.
If you’re looking at buying a new PC yourself, you can find our current top picks in our best gaming PC guide or you can learn how to build a gaming PC yourself in our step-by-step guide.