PC shipments fall 20% in sharpest decline since Q1 2023

PC Shipments Plummet 20% Amid AI-Driven Memory Chip Shortage

Market Decline

The PC market just had its worst quarter in more than three years. Global shipments fell roughly 20% year over year in Q3 2026, according to research firms Omdia and IDC.

AI-Driven Shortage

Omdia called it the industry's sharpest decline since Q1 2023. The culprit is not a sudden loss of interest in laptops. It is artificial intelligence, which has been quietly buying up the memory chips that PCs need to function.

Numbers Behind the Slump

Omdia counted 58.1 million laptops, desktops, and workstations shipped worldwide in the quarter. That is a drop of 21.2% from the same period a year earlier. IDC's tally came in a bit higher, at 62.7 million units, for a decline of 20.1%.

Impact on Vendors

Lenovo kept the top spot with around 14.9 million units shipped and roughly 24% to 26% market share, despite a decline of about 23%. HP posted the steepest drop among major vendors, falling approximately 31% to around 10.3 million units. Dell saw shipments shrink by around 25%. Apple held up better than most, with volumes down around 11%.

AI's Role in the Shortage

The core problem is memory. Every PC needs DRAM, the short-term working memory that keeps applications running, and NAND, the flash storage that holds your files. AI, tech, and the markets they move—in one daily briefing. Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy.

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Memory Component Prices

AI workloads need the same components, and data centers training and running AI models have been absorbing supply that once flowed to consumer hardware. Memory component prices have climbed to more than four times their previous levels, driven by AI demand. DRAM and NAND now make up almost 40% of a typical PC's bill of materials, compared with an average of around 15% previously.

Seasonal Buying Rhythm

In the first half of 2026, buyers rushed to purchase PCs ahead of expected price hikes. That pull-forward demand inflated earlier shipments and left a hole in the quarters that followed, scrambling the usual seasonal buying rhythm.

Outlook

Omdia projects shipments will fall another 24% year over year in Q4 2026, a steeper drop than the quarter just reported. The firm also expects a further 7% decline across all of 2027.

PC Prices

With memory now accounting for close to 40% of a machine's component costs, PC prices have little room to fall meaningfully while AI demand stays this strong.