NVIDIA: Pandemic has accelerated buying habits

Video cards have been in short supply for well over half a year and based on commentary from executives and industry experts, it doesn't look like this situation will resolve itself in the coming months. Things may get a bit better in the second half of this year, but a complete balance of supply and demand for the electronics industry isn't expected this year.

Pocket Lint had a chat with NVIDIA's head of European consumer PR, Ben Barraondo, about the current situation. A lot of products sell out instantaneously as soon as they hit online stores, Barraondo speculates this is because the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated certain buying habits.

In particular, Barraondo points out gamers are investing more into gaming PCs than ever before. This is a trend that started before the pandemic -- and it seems the industry wasn't prepared for this huge uptick in demand.

"Because of that, people are actually doing a few things. One, it means that the most important chip inside a PC has become the GPU. And two, it means that people are spending more on their rig, whether that's higher-end components or a slightly higher end laptop.

"So when we look at the demand and how many GPUs we've been selling, I would say the demand has been 100 per cent unprecedented." -- NVIDIA's Ben Barraondo

This is definitely one of the strange things about the current shortages. A lot of people complain about cards being hard to find, and cards only being available at absurd prices, but at the same time NVIDIA's financial results show the company is shipping massive volume. Are there a lot more gamers than before? Or are miners secretly buying up a lot more volume than NVIDIA thinks?