Computer shipments fell by 20.1 percent due to rising memory prices
The third quarter usually boosts computer sales, but this year it brought the steepest decline in IDC's measurement history for this period. Analysts do not expect prices to return to last year's levels.
According to preliminary data from analytics firm IDC published this week, global personal computer shipments in Q3 2026 amounted to 62.7 million units. That is 20.1 percent less than a year earlier (78.5 million) and 9.1 percent less than in Q2, although the third quarter is usually stronger. Analytics firm Omdia, which counts the market using a different method, reports 58.1 million devices and a decline of 21.2 percent.
The main reason is memory prices. Memory manufacturers are directing production capacity to chips for data centers supporting artificial intelligence. According to Omdia, memory and storage now account for nearly 40 percent of a computer's component cost, compared with a typical 15 percent. In the first half of the year, manufacturers and distributors built up inventories ahead of price increases, which reduced demand in the third quarter.
The declines affected all of the top five manufacturers. Lenovo shipped 14.9 million computers (-22.6 percent), HP 10.3 million (-30.9 percent), Dell 7.6 million (-25 percent), Apple 5.9 million (-11.3 percent), and ASUS 5.5 million (-8.6 percent). Despite the declines, Apple and ASUS increased their market shares.
Sales channels are currently concerned about holding excessively large inventories when high prices are suppressing demand.
IDC expects only moderate and short-lived promotions, and prices are expected to remain elevated. Omdia forecasts a 24 percent year-on-year decline in shipments in Q4 and 7 percent for all of 2027. Gartner, cited by CRN Australia, estimates that DRAM memory and SSD drives will rise in price by a combined approximately 130 percent by the end of the year, and computers by approximately 17 percent compared with 2025. Gartner analysts expect memory prices to stabilize in Q1 2027.
Companies planning hardware replacements in 2027 must therefore reckon with prices higher than in 2025. Gartner predicts that businesses will extend the computer usage cycle by an average of about 15 percent.