2021 seems to have been a pretty good year for the PC gaming market. According to The NPD Group, PC gaming hardware and accessories sales in 2021 increased by 25% compared to the sales numbers in 2020. How much money is a 25% increase? About $5.71 Billion. Which is the amount consumers spent on gaming hardware and accessories last year.

Considering the amount of people still working from home throughout much of 2021, this doesn’t feel like a shocking outcome. Many people were stuck inside after the pandemic hit and picked up gaming as new hobby. That likely had something to do with fostering future sales of gaming-related products. Perhaps some of those consumers needed new equipment after buying their initial gaming PC hardware.

It’s also entirely possible that last year included a lot of first-time buyers of PC gaming hardware. That being said, the report does not mention anything about whether sales from new or existing PC gamers.

PC gaming sales in 2021 were topped by desktops, notebooks, and PC mics

Out of all that spending, you might expect a large chunk of it to revolve around things headsets, mice, keyboards and other accessories. But that isn’t the case. In fact the largest portion of hardware and accessory sales for the PC gaming market in 2021 belongs to desktops, notebooks, and PC microphones. Which make up the top three biggest segments of the consumer spend.

These three areas of hardware saw increases of 28%, 29%, and 25% respectively. Meanwhile, PC microphones, monitors, and notebooks saw the highest volume growth. Mic volume growth increased by 27%, while monitors increased by 17% and notebooks increased by 16%.

Hardware wasn’t the only rise in the sector either. There was an increase of on digital content sales of 5% which is about $7.9 billion. This includes software for cloud and non-console VR. And wouldn’t you know it, PC gamers spent more time playing games last year as well.

On average, about 7.7 hours every single week. That’s only an increase of an hour compared to 2020. But still an increase. Of course 7.7 hours per week obviously doesn’t cover everyone. As many PC gamers spend a few hours a night playing their favorite titles.