UK games market maintains momentum with 1.9% growth to 7.16bn in 2021
Marie Dealessandri
Features Editor
Thursday 31st March 2022
UKIE
The UK games market has reached a new high, with a value of £7.16 billion in 2021, according to UKIE's UK Consumer Games Market Valuation 2021.
This represented a 1.9% increase year-on-year, after a record breaking 2020 with sales boosted by the pandemic and lockdowns, the UK trade body noted. The market value was up 32.8% compared to 2019.
The growth came from hardware sales in particular, which rose 17.4% year-on-year to reach £2.66 billion. Within the hardware category, console sales went up 32.9% to £1.13 billion and virtual reality hardware increased an impressive 41.9% compared to 2020, now representing £183 million.
Dorian Bloch, senior client director at GfK Entertainment, attributed the console growth to the launch of the new PS5 and Xbox Series S|X, of course, but also to the continued success of the Nintendo Switch.
"2021 was the first full calendar year for Sony's PS5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series consoles. Both made a huge impact in Q4 2020 at launch, with consumer demand outstripping supply, so there is no surprise that this is the best year since the all-time peak back in 2008.
"But we should not forget that Nintendo's Switch also enjoyed another big year in 2021. This is a fifth year at market for the Switch, which has been rejuvenated and refreshed a number of times since 2017 -- most notably with Switch Lite in 2019 and Switch OLED in 2020."
Software sales declined 6.32% year-on-year to £4.28 billion but they remained higher than they were pre-pandemic, with a 11.4% growth compared to 2019.
Digital sales were down 5.59% on console and 7% on PC, with UKIE attributing it to the "limited number of major releases appearing in 2021 compared to games like
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