September of 2021 has broken yet another record in the video gaming industry
According to the NPD Group, consumer spending on gaming hardware, games and accessories reached a Sept. record of $4.4 billion, representing a 3% increase over 2020. September is normally a slower month for gaming related sales as most US schools reopen after the summer.
This year, in the first three quarters, American consumer spending in the space reached $42.3 billion, up 12% over the first three quarters of 2020.
The video game industry remains one of the biggest growth sectors for investors, globally.
The NPD Group report shows hardware sales for the month grew 49% y-o-y, with year-to-date sales up 49% as well, to a total of $3.4 billion.
Both Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Switch lead the way in hardware units and dollar value sold, year to date.
For mobile gaming, the market exceeded $2 billion in consumer spending 8 of the first 9 months of the year. Average monthly spending on mobile gaming grew 28% in the first three quarters of 2021, over the same period in 2020.
As the marketplace begins to adopt cloud-based gaming, metaverse gaming, and in-game eCommerce transactions, total spending withing the gaming ecosphere could eventually surpass $1 trillion, globally.
This revenue could largely be driven by in-game commerce of real-world items. Essentially, ecommerce stores, like Amazon, could be available to gamers, inside of their favorite games. Importantly, smaller e-tailers could also open shop inside games and sell their real-world products.
However, the technology to accomplish the marriage of gaming and eCommerce has yet to launch, but is on the near horizon.
One gaming company hopes to take its patented in-game commerce technology to market shortly, and should it be proven successful, may become one of the biggest winners of the coming years.
Learn more about the NPD Group report, HERE
Or examine a company with patented in-game commerce technology, HERE