by MTHULISI SIBANDA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE past year, characterised by the outbreak of the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown, has brought unprecedented growth in the South African gaming industry.
According to an industry executive, the lockdown imposed since the end of March has led to gamers embracing their passion even more.
Yugen Naidoo, Lenovo Southern Africa’s Consumer Business Lead, said gaming was now one of the fastest and highest growing market segments in the consumer personal computer (PC) market in South Africa.
He disclosed that in March 2020, when President Cyril Ramaphosa implemented a nationwide lockdown, the company’s gaming sales coverage increased by over 30 percent.
According to Verizon, global video game internet traffic has gone up by approximately 75 percent, compared to meagre increases of 12 percent in digital video traffic and 20 percent in web traffic.
“Naturally, we at Lenovo are energised to see the growth in this segment as we are currently the number one gaming PC brand worldwide and continue to innovate and develop tailor-made gaming products to cater to this market,” Naidoo said.
Lenovo projects the gaming industry to grow as South Africa’s infrastructure continues to evolve.
A recent report published by Statista states that the entire PC gaming market in South Africa is estimated to be worth R749 million (US$51,45 million) in 2023, a 12 percent increase in value from R670 million in 2018.
A big trend Lenovo has witnessed is that gamers in South Africa are moving to social gaming, the free-to-play revenue model with downstream in-game purchases.
In addition to this, there has been a massive spike in Esports and Twitch’s viewership, the stats of which have almost doubled since last year.
– CAJ News