The last three months of 2008 saw a 35% drop off in global GPU sales
John Peddie research firm has reported their official numbers for GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) sales in 2008.
Unsurprisingly, the last quarter of 2008 saw a significant drop off in sales. Usually, this period reports positive growth, as it seems people are more likely to spend on luxury goods like graphics cards going into the Christmas season.
The fourth quarter (Oct-Dec) 2008 saw 72.35 million GPUs ship, where as the previous year reported shipping 100.5 million GPUs over the same period. This reflects a drop of around 28% in the graphics card market from the previous year.
The third quarter of 2008 saw 111.26 million GPUs ship. This makes for a 34% drop off in GPU sales between the two consecutive quarters.
“Put simply, the market stalled in the fourth quarter” said Dr John Peddie, president of John Peddie Research.
Peddie does believe that the industry will bounce back at the end of 2009, saying “We’re forecasting a strong Q3 and Q4 for 2009 and bracing for what will probably be the worst Q1 and Q2 decline we’ve seen since the Internet bubble pop of 2000.”
Many other commentators believe that it will be years before the economy returns to where it was before the recession hit, and it may therefore be a while before the GPU industry starts registering growth again.