Yup, PC monitor sales have cratered too and are getting worse
Add monitors to the list along with CPUs, GPUs, and the rest.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
PC monitor sales were down 5.9% in 2022. If that doesn't sound too catastrophic, the final quarter of 2022 was down 18.3% compared to the same period in 2021 and added up to the worst quarter on record. So yeah, the latest data is pretty ugly.
This is all according to the market data cork sniffers at analyst outfit IDC. Total PC monitor units shipped in Q4 2022 was just over 30.5 million units, the lowest number since IDC began tracking the market in 2008.
The dip in the PC monitor market mirrors that of CPUs and graphics cards, of course. IDC said the contraction was expected on two counts. First, the patchy global economic environment. Second, an inevitable downturn following a spike in shipments to meet pandemic driven demand for work-at-home and gaming hardware.
IDC predicts 2023 will actually be worse again overall with a further 9.8% contraction before the market recovers in 2024. Taken in the round and looking at IDC's graph, the dip in 2022 and 2023 is pretty mild, especially when you consider the big spike during the pandemic.
So, let's not panic. 120 million PC monitors are still going to find homes in 2023. The world is still spinning.
Incidentally, if you were wondering who the big names in PC monitors are, IDC has numbers for that, too. Dell is by far the biggest player, with around 22.5% of the market, with HP second on about 12% and Samsung, Lenovo and TPV close behind.
Of course, that's the whole PC monitor market, not just gaming panels. Anywho, a bit of a dip is not a huge surprise. And as we recently discovered with ASRock's new 34-inch ultrawide panel, really good gaming monitors don't need to be uber expensive.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first

Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.


