Black Myth: Wukong said to single-handedly boost monitor sales in 2024 as gamers predicted to buy 2.8 million OLED monitors in 2025
The popularity of OLED gaming monitors is becoming a popular riff. Today, we've got new figures from analyst outfit Trendforce that keep the good news coming, albeit with a slightly different spin from LG's take on the market earlier this week.
Arguably the most eye-catching claim from Trendforce's latest data dump is that the release of Black Myth: Wukong in late 2024 single-handedly boosted demand in China so much that LCD panel makers HKC, CSOT and BOE saw 50%, 40% and 20% sales boosts, respectively, for 2024.
Note, those aren't monitor brands, but companies that make the LCD panels that go into monitors. BOE is a panel maker we're quite familiar with and can be found in many aggressively priced gaming monitors. The other two manufacturers are less familiar.
Anyway, the impact of Black Myth: Wukong is pretty remarkable. Without it, the overall gaming monitor market probably wouldn't have grown much at all given Trendforce reckons the overall global market for gaming monitors grew by a much smaller 12% to 32.4 million units. For the record, Trendforce's definition of a gaming monitor is one that offers a refresh rate of at least 144 Hz, which is reasonable.
But what about OLED monitors? Trendforce says OLED monitor sales grew 900,000 in 2023 to two million in 2024 and expects that figure to swell to 2.8 million this year. That's a lot of OLED gaming monitors. But it's not quite in line with LG's claims of late, at least not in terms of the proportions.
Back in January, LG said OLEDs were making up 22% of gaming monitor ongoing sales. It also quoted a 13.3% figure for OLED's market share in 2024. However, Trendforce numbers put OLED market share at nearer 6% for 2024, with 8% forecast for 2025.
In all candour, those figures feel much more plausible. Of course, the reality is that nobody knows for sure exactly how many gaming monitors were sold in 2024 and 2025 is obviously a best guestimate for now.
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