The threat of worth hikes led to by means of the present AI-driven call for for reminiscence and garage seems to have satisfied a justifiable share of other folks to shop for a brand new laptop. Consistent with knowledge analyzed by means of Counterpoint Analysis, world PC shipments grew round 3.2 % year-over-year in Q1 2026, “pushed by means of pre-emptive purchasing earlier than memory-led worth will increase hit the retail stage” and Microsoft forcing some shoppers to improve by means of finishing enhance for Home windows 10 final yr.
Gross sales hit 63.3 million gadgets all the way through the primary quarter, Counterpoint says, and have been in particular concentrated in 5 high-end PC makers: Lenovo, ASUS, Apple, HP and Dell. Of the 5, Lenovo instructions essentially the most PC marketplace percentage at 26 %, however gross sales larger for just about all the firms, save for HP, whose year-over-year gross sales technically declined by means of 5 %. Of specific notice, Apple’s PC gross sales grew by means of 11 %, most likely at the power of the M5 updates it made to the MacBook Professional and MacBook Air, and the advent of the reasonably priced $600 MacBook Neo. Counterpoint suggests the updates may power even additional gross sales enlargement subsequent quarter.
Even with certain gross sales, the PC business as an entire is in no way out of the woods. “The competitive enlargement in AI infrastructure funding is riding up general element prices, which is able to most likely affect the pricing of CPUs and different key parts in [PCs],” Counterpoint Senior Analyst Minsoo Kang says. “In the long run, the sustained upward drive on prices and the ensuing hike in retail costs are anticipated to have an important destructive affect at the PC marketplace’s enlargement in 2026.”
A normal sense that the worst is but to return is in line with what different analysts have warned in regards to the present shortages of RAM and garage. In December 2025, IDC predicted that PC shipments may drop up to 8.9 % in 2026 according to the cost of RAM, and later revised its prediction to 11.6 % this previous March. Even though customers don’t seem to be 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 cost of its Quest headsets — because of this if they don’t seem to be feeling them now, they’ll quickly.
