UAE, Saudi gamers spend $256mln as COVID-19 fuels growth in hardware market

UAE, Saudi gamers spend $256mln as COVID-19 fuels growth in hardware market

A spike in demand from stay-at-home customers during Covid-19 lockdowns has fueled growth in the gaming hardware market in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.Data company GfK Point of Sales said gaming has been one of the few sectors positively impacted by the pandemic, as users stocked up on new consoles, devices and gaming notebooks.The first six months of 2020 generated $256 million in revenues, a 29 percent increase on the same period in 2019.Sales of gaming notebooks grew  by 32 percent, consoles by 31 percent and leisure devices by 17 percent, contributing a combined total of $207 million in revenues.  The fastest-growing categories were gaming monitors and gaming keyboards and mice, for which sales went up by 110 and 77 percent, respectively. There was also a significant growth for gaming notebooks and