PC shipments fell over 20% in 3Q26, down 15.8 million units, with chip shortages hitting Lenovo, HP and Dell hardest.
PC shipments worldwide fell 20.1% year over year in the third quarter of 2026, a drop of 15.8 million units, according to research firm IDC. That is a steeper decline than the 3.8% year-over-year decrease the market saw last quarter. Shipments also fell 9.1% from the second quarter of this year. Many research firms have been warning since late last year that the PC market could shrink by as much as 9%, with the budget segment hit hardest. Some experts estimate the situation will not improve until 2029, and Tom's Hardware readers say they won't upgrade their systems for at least the next two years.
Memory price increases have been directly caused by the boom in AI data centers, as hyperscalers pour large sums into high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which AI GPUs require. Memory manufacturers have pivoted toward this technology, leaving less production capacity for consumer memory. Micron, for example, discontinued its Crucial RAM and SSD brand in late 2025 to focus on data center production. As PC makers compete for a shrinking supply of memory chips, memory prices have climbed by as much as 500%, and 128GB of DDR5 now costs up to $3,399.
Manufacturers did not simply wait for the market to correct. Many stocked up on inventory in the second quarter of 2026 to get ahead of the projected price increases caused by the shortage, which directly contributed to the reduced shipments reported this quarter. "What we're seeing is the result of the strong first half pull-in," said Jitesh Ubrani, IDC's research director for consumer devices. "Vendors and channels loaded up on inventory early in the year to get ahead of price hikes, and that has thrown off the usual seasonality, where Q3 is typically larger than Q2. Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand. That could translate into promotions and some short-term relief for consumers, but we don't expect pricing anywhere near what it was a year ago. Prices will remain elevated. With macro conditions worsening, the risk is that the outlook for the next few quarters gets worse before it gets better."
The top three PC vendors were hit the hardest. Lenovo's shipments fell 22.6%, HP shipped 30.9% fewer units, and Dell's shipments contracted 25%. Apple's shipments shrank 11.3%, Asus's fell 8.6%, and the rest of the market shipped 14% less year over year. Despite the declines, Lenovo, HP, and Dell retained their positions as the top three vendors, with market shares of 23.8%, 16.5%, and 12.1%, respectively.
Other industry leaders, including Micron, say conditions will not improve for several years. Acer CEO Jason Chen disagreed, arguing that these fears are being hyped to protect the margins of memory chip makers. He estimated that PC prices will fall in the latter half of 2027 as Chinese memory chip capacity comes online, and said that only high-end parts, such as LPDDR5X-9600, and niche CPUs, such as Nvidia's N1 and N1X, will remain in short supply.