In January-June, sales of video cards in Russia grew by 50% in units, and how the average price of a device decreased by 36%

In January-June, sales of video cards in the Russian Federation increased by 50% in units, while the average price of a device decreased by 36% yoy and the market slightly decreased in monetary terms. The decrease in the cost of equipment was due to the emergence of new inexpensive Chinese brands on the market and a decrease in demand for high-performance cards from miners, distributors and retailers say. In real terms, sales are growing at the expense of other business areas where artificial intelligence technologies are being developed and implemented, experts specify.

Business Analyst at F+ tech | Marvel” Artur Makhlayuk told “Kommersant” that sales of video cards in Russia for the first half of the year in physical terms increased by 50% year-on-year, to 543.5 thousand units. Until July 2022, about 60 thousand devices were sold per month in the Russian Federation, now – 90-100 thousand.

At the same time, in money terms, sales decreased by 1.65%, to 17.8 billion rubles. Makhlayuk explained that the number of video cards of lower cost has increased on the market, which is why the average price of a device has fallen from 50,000 to 32,000 rubles a year.

According to F+ tech | Marvel, Chinese brands Asrock (by 93%), Zotac (by 59%) and Inno3d (by 50%), as well as American PNY (by 44%), Nvidia (by 17%) and Powercolor showed the largest sales growth for the year. (by 14%). Palit (22.7%), Gygabite (23.5%), MSI (19%), KFA2 (7.5%), Asus (6.5%) were among the leaders of the Russian market in terms of the number of video cards sold in the first half of the year. , Sapphire (4.5%).

The average cost of video cards was affected by a decrease in interest in high-performance mining equipment, Artur Makhlayuk believes: “With a low cryptocurrency exchange rate, the costs of mining it cover profits.” The fall in demand for cryptocurrency began in 2021. Then the miners even began to sell their video cards on classifieds, which is why the number of offers for Nvidia devices on the VKontakte social network increased by 27% (see Kommersant dated June 11, 2021). A year later, the cost of video cards fell by 40–50%, then experts associated this with the transfer of the Ethereum platform to a system without video cards (see Kommersant dated November 29, 2022).

Citilink confirmed that the cost of video cards in retail fell to 30 thousand rubles, also linking this to the “cessation of the mining hype.” According to M.Video-Eldorado, over the past year, the average check for video cards in the network has fallen to 25 thousand rubles.

Sales of video cards on the world market in the first quarter of 2023 generally fell by 38.2% compared to the same period last year, says Leonid Delitsin, an analyst at FG Finam. According to him, the situation was affected by the general contraction of the computer market, the decline in household incomes and pent-up demand: “Consumers are waiting for new models of video cards that will not appear until the third quarter, and demand may begin to grow in subsequent quarters.”

Mr. Delitsin noted that the growth in the Russian Federation is associated with wholesale sales of video cards of previous models for commercial purposes. In M.Video-Eldorado, the increase in sales in units is explained by the interest of consumers in gaming and the development of solutions in the field of artificial intelligence on the part of business.

In the Russian Federation, the direction of artificial intelligence is actively developing, which affects the sales of video cards, confirms the director of technical support for NtechLab (a developer of systems for face recognition based on AI) Nikita Filippov. At the same time, he clarifies, many companies buy video cards in reserve, since the geopolitical situation and the prospects for the presence of these devices on the Russian market are still not fully understood.

According to Mr. Filippov, by the end of the year, the demand for video cards will drop slightly, as companies fill up warehouses, but with further development of the market, AI will recover again. This, the expert adds, can be facilitated by state support measures announced by the government. In July, the president instructed to develop measures to support domestic developments based on AI. Among them, in particular, the allocation of state funding to AI research centers in 2024-2026, as well as the launch of experimental legal regimes.

Timofey Kornev