Valve's Steam deck will have sold over three million units by the end of 2023.

That's according to new research from Omdia, which estimates that during 2022 around 1.6 million Steam Deck units were shifted. The company predicts that by the end of this year, sales will hit 1.9 million, a 14 per cent increase year-on-year.

“It is clear Steam Deck remains a niche portion of the PC gaming landscape,” Omdia Games senior analyst James McWhirter said.

“However, this is unlikely to deter Valve, which has plans beyond just selling hardware units.”

He continued: “Valve’s end game goes beyond Steam Deck itself, thus its relatively small installed base is unlikely to be an area of concern in the short term. Valve is focused on utilising early usage data to refine and improve the SteamOS software powering Steam Deck – software which has already enabled the company to translate a large portion of Steam games from the Windows operating system. Valve aims to increase its addressable market via Steam for Chromebooks and Tesla vehicles, now that it has reduced its dependence on Windows.”

Valve's Steam Deck launched back in 2022 with long wait times for consoles for much of its first year. Last month, the hardware received its first discount since release and shot straight back to the No.1 spot on Steam.