A report from John Peddie Research (JPR), a computer graphics and gaming industry research firm, has revealed that the sale of GPUs in the second quarter of 2018 has dropped substantially due to a decrease in cryptocurrency-mining euphoria.
The report explains that the entire GPU market’s sales have declined by 1.5% in the second quarter of 2018. The year-to-year figures also showed a 4.9% decrease in the total GPU sales.
The decline in sales – although not enormous – was mostly attributed to the diminishing rewards for mining cryptocurrencies. Specifically, altcoin mining in 2018 has not been as profitable as in 2017 – as most cryptocurrency prices have been in free fall throughout the year.
The other reason cited for the return to more normal sales figures is that potential users have been keeping an eye on the release of Nvidia’s latest GeForce Refresh graphics cards and how the release might affect the price of the ‘Pascal’ parts inside the cards.
The report also revealed that based on past trends, it was normal for second-quarter sales figures to be lower than those of the first.
Changes in market shares for the three major graphics card producers were also covered by the report. The market shares of Nvidia and AMD dropped from 18% to 17% and 15% to 13% respectively. Intel, on the other hand, saw its market share increase from 67% to 70%.
JPR Expects The First Quarter Sales to be the Highest of 2018
Based on the recorded sales for GPUs in the second quarter and the slump in cryptocurrency mining rewards, the JPR report judged the first quarter to be the highpoint of the era of high demand for GPUs.
Moreover, the research firm does not expect cryptocurrency mining to have any significant influence on the GPU market in the future:
The PC market is showing more stabilization, and now seems to have shaken off the gold rush fever of crypto-mining, overall volume slipped, albeit with bright spots for the market here and there.
We can mark Q1’18 as the peak and last hurrah of the crypto-mining fever. Desktop GPUs, which went into mining rigs, have dropped back to their normal volume. We believe the market for AIBs for crypto-mining has ended and this will likely be our last mention of it.
