- 2025 saw healthy PC market growth, but 2026 is set to be far more turbulent
- Memory and storage prices are rising, and it’s not good for consumers
- Budget devices could see the biggest price increases
Despite rising 9.2% year-over-year in 2025 (and 10.1% in Q4 2025), analysts at Omdia are worried global PC shipments could fall in 2026 due to rising costs and mounting pressure from AI data centers.
The firm’s data claims mainstream PC memory costs rose by around 70% throughout 2025 as a whole, with vendors even beginning to warn customers of price rises towards the end of the year. And even more worrying, analysts have already predicted a further 50% rise in the first quarter of 2026.
With memory manufacturers prioritizing high-margin server DRAM and HBM destined for data centers, production of mainstream DDR memory for PCs has suffered, and supply isn’t meeting demand. SSD costs were also up 40% in 2025.
PC prices will go up, shipment volumes will go down
Omdia is expecting memory shortages to impact PC sales in 2026, with OEMs likely to focus on high-end devices as a result of the rising component costs. Mid and low-tier configurations could also end up being shipped with less RAM or storage to counter the limited supply.
“Given tight 2026 supply, the industry is emphasizing high-end SKUs and leaner mid to low-tier configurations to protect margins,” Principal Analyst Ben Yeh explained.
Trendforce also released a similar report at the end of 2025, predicting a 5.4% year-over-year decrease in global notebook shipments for 2026. Notebooks accounted for around four in five (79%) of all PC shipments in 2025 per Omdia, with PCs taking the much smaller market share.
Moreover, a 10.1% decrease in notebook shipments could be the case if conditions worsen, Trendforce warns.
IDC also agreed that shipments could drop this year. “IDC expects that the PC market will be far different in 12 months given how quickly the memory situation is evolving,” Research VP Jean Philippe Bouchard explained.
Market predictions were not published by IDC, but the firm’s analysts warned of extreme volatility, lower average memory configurations, and further price increases.
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