Last year the graphics chip industry shipped over 44 million
high-end AIBs, about 54% of the total discrete shipments and 23% of
the total desktop, for a total of 44.5 million AIBs.
There
aren’t 44 million game enthusiasts in the world, and they would have
to be very enthusiastic to buy a new high-end AIB every year, wouldn’t
they? So we looked at the categories and applied our magic slide rule
to the numbers, and came up with the following model.
You
can find yourself in this list if you have a high-end AIB. I place myself
in the Serious category. I love PC computer games (never really could
master those console controllers, just not enough vernier for me), and
I play a couple of hours whenever I can. Now, would I buy a high-end
AIB for that duty load? Yes, in a heartbeat, and most of my friends
(many of them reading this) are in the same category and would do the
same thing. We’ll use our systems most of the time for the same things
other information workers do, but when there is that opportunity to
unwind and have a little fun, we want the best. You could say that places
me in the Connoisseur category and I wouldn’t argue with that except
I tend to think of connoisseurs as being a bit dilletante-ish, and I
have to work for a living, to support my expensive habits.
So whereas the mod’ers get all the headlines, they are
but the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
And yes, of course, you can move the percentages around
in the model or even collapse some of the categories into one—let’s
not argue how many angels on the head of a pin, but rather understand
the nature of the buyers of 44.5 million AIBs with an ASP of $350 making
a $15.5 billion dollar market per year! And if you want to have fun
with numbers, just apply that ASP (or any ASP of your choosing) to those
category numbers.
The market is even bigger when you add in the games.
I, Mr. Serious, buy one or two a year (yeah, and I get given a lot too,
but they are not all interesting to me). My last purchase was $49 for
“Chaos Theory” (which, BTW, came on a DVD, that’s how big
the textures files and shader programs were). Part of it is research,
and most of it is fun.
We think the Serious, Casual, and Connoisseur users buy
an average of 2.5 games a year for $75. They also buy other gear to
support their habit. So high-end AIBs are the catalysts for a big, big
market. The gamers, whatever category they fit into, go to the store
(physical or virtual) looking for either a game or an AIB, and once
there, they usually come home with at least one additional thing.
So that’s what we’re doing this week up on Mt. Tiburon
and down in L.A.— we’re playing with the numbers. We just finished
our quarterly count of graphics chips, and if you don’t get that report
you’re missing some juicy stuff, not the least of which is the predictive
aspect of what the next quarter’s PC volume will be like.
We’ve just finished our DCC report, which looks at where
some of these high-end AIBs go. Next up will be the Workstation Report,
and then we’ll have a pretty complete picture of the graphics market.
And speaking of numbers, if you look at reports of PC
shipments you’ll notice PC shipments worldwide rose 14.7% in 2004 to
177.5 million units according to IDC, while rival firm Gartner reported
an 11.8% increase in PC unit shipments to 189 million, or 183.3 million
for an average.
And we reported that 239 million graphics thingies shipped
in 2004—a difference of 55.8 units or 23%.
One of the reasons for the difference is where the measurement
is made. We use our data to make a forward-looking report—we start
at the front end of the process, whereas the PC counting firms start
at the back end of the process, so if there’s any growth in the market,
we’re about a quarter ahead of them and that accounts for some of the
difference.
The
other thing, or things, is we get it all; they only get PCs—finished
goods. We get:
• Inventory
• Aftermarket sales of AIBs
• Double load of IGCs and AIBs with one-size-fits-all
motherboards
• Industrial and military systems
• CE devices
• Other platforms (e.g., POS, kiosks) and “misc.”
So
are high-end AIBs just for games?
Yeah, kinda. They get into some other things, too—some
military systems like Quantum3D makes and the big sim systems E&S and
SGI make. A few find their way into high-end medical systems and some
photo layout systems, and odds and ends that not even JPR tracks. But
the majority of the high-end AIBs are used for games, just not exclusively
for games, and that’s the key point here. Yes, high-end AIBs are used
for games, but those of us who buy them for games also use them when
we’re doing other work.