The specter of worth hikes attributable to the present AI-driven demand for reminiscence and storage seems to have satisfied a fair proportion of individuals to purchase a brand new laptop. In keeping with information analyzed by Counterpoint Analysis, international PC shipments grew round 3.2 p.c year-over-year in Q1 2026, “pushed by pre-emptive shopping for earlier than memory-led worth will increase hit the retail degree” and Microsoft forcing some prospects to improve by ending assist for Home windows 10 final 12 months.
Gross sales hit 63.3 million items throughout the first quarter, Counterpoint says, and have been significantly concentrated in 5 high-end PC makers: Lenovo, ASUS, Apple, HP and Dell. Of the 5, Lenovo instructions probably the most PC market share at 26 p.c, however gross sales elevated for nearly all the corporations, save for HP, whose year-over-year gross sales technically declined by 5 p.c. Of explicit word, Apple’s PC gross sales grew by 11 p.c, doubtless on the energy of the M5 updates it made to the MacBook Professional and MacBook Air, and the introduction of the inexpensive $600 MacBook Neo. Counterpoint suggests the updates might drive even additional gross sales development subsequent quarter.
Even with optimistic gross sales, the PC trade as a complete is not at all out of the woods. “The aggressive enlargement in AI infrastructure funding is driving up total element prices, which is able to doubtless affect the pricing of CPUs and different key parts in [PCs],” Counterpoint Senior Analyst Minsoo Kang says. “Finally, the sustained upward stress on prices and the ensuing hike in retail costs are anticipated to have a big unfavorable affect on the PC market’s development in 2026.”
A normal sense that the worst is but to come back is according to what different analysts have warned in regards to the present shortages of RAM and storage. In December 2025, IDC predicted that PC shipments might drop as a lot as 8.9 p.c in 2026 in response to the value of RAM, and later revised its prediction to 11.6 p.c this previous March. Even when shoppers aren’t feeling the worst of those worth hikes simply but, new bulletins of worth will increase appear to reach like clockwork each few weeks — for instance, this week, Meta raised the value of its Quest headsets — which implies if they don’t seem to be feeling them now, they’ll quickly.
