Prices on graphics cards increased by 100% last year

Prices on graphics cards skyrocketed in 2021

A common component in everything from games consoles, cars and consumer tech such as mobile phones is the graphics card. Prices have skyrocketed during the past six months and increased on average by 100%, leaving gamers disappointed.

In a new price analysis by PriceRunner, looking at prices on almost 1,000 graphics cards listed on their site (905 products during the week commencing 17^th of January, 2022), they found that the average price increase between June last year to early January 2022 was 100%.

With the ongoing semiconductor shortage, the crisis has hit hard on everything from processors to different types of network storage, both in terms of price and availability. We could clearly see this in our analysis of graphic cards, showing us that more than half of all graphics cards are out of stock right now.” said Christine Gouldthorp, Consumer Expert at PriceRunner.

Right now, more graphics cards are out of stock on PriceRunner’s website than there are available to purchase. When taking a look at stock data on the 25^th of January for 957 graphics cards, 52% were out of stock and 48% in stock. This means that more than half are currently unavailable to purchase online.  

Taking a look at all available graphics cards on their site, the total average price development for the graphics cards in the analysis has increased steadily since June 2021:

Good things might not come to gamers who wait

When PriceRunner took a look at the most popular products during 2021, examining the more than 2.3 million products on their site, both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X make the top 10 list, even placing second and third most popular of all products last year.

One of the explanations for the new gaming consoles being among the most popular of all could be that sellers have had a hard time meeting the demand of games, not only because of the ongoing shipping crisis, but also the global lack of components such as graphics cards, the so-called semiconductor shortage, which has hit the technology sector particularly hard.

The list of most popular products in 2021, based on the number of clicks on a product out to a retailer website, is dominated by tech products such as gaming consoles, headphones and TV’s, as well as clothes and white goods:

With the current lack of hardware, several gamers have instead started to explore cloud services offered by companies, so called cloud gaming. Here you can play on basically any platform, all you need is some sort of gaming control and an internet connection. That is why this services is increasingly being built into new televisions, for example.

It is not only console players who have been affected by the semiconductor shortage. Even PC-users have experienced difficulties during last year to get their hands on components for their own builds, which as a results has led to dramatic price increase on for example price on graphics during the last year.