Global PC shipments dropped 20.1 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2026 to 62.7 million units, according to IDC—the steepest third-quarter decline the research firm has ever recorded. Omdia reported a comparable 21.2 percent decline to 58.1 million devices.
Desktop PC shipments fell 23.5 percent to 11.7 million units, while laptop shipments declined 20.6 percent to 46.4 million units, Omdia said.
The root cause is straightforward: AI infrastructure has hijacked the memory supply chain. High Bandwidth Memory and server DRAM—critical inputs for training and inference workloads—now command such high prices and manufacturing priority that consumer PC makers face a crushing cost structure. Memory and storage have ballooned from a typical 15 percent of PC bill of materials to nearly 40 percent, according to Ben Yeh, principal analyst at Omdia.
PC prices have increased more than fourfold since 2025. This cost shock has compressed margins across the entire consumer PC ecosystem and destroyed demand at the retail and enterprise level.
The timing reveals an inventory trap. Many vendors and channel partners front-loaded shipments in early 2026 in anticipation of rising memory costs. By Q3, that stockpiling had worked through the channel, leaving minimal demand just as elevated costs began hitting end-market pricing. Vendors and their ODM partners began scaling back production, while channel partners grappled with bloated inventory at higher price points.
Jitesh Ubrani, research director for consumer devices at IDC, said channels are concerned about carrying excess inventory into a high-price market. He expects that pressure to trigger promotions and short-term price relief, but that prices will remain elevated and will not return to levels seen a year ago.
IDC expects PC prices to decrease only modestly and briefly, with macroeconomic conditions posing downside risk to the outlook for coming quarters.
