PC shipments fell 21% in Q3 as memory costs pushed prices up

The PC market has had a rough quarter. Global PC shipments fell 21% year on year in Q3 2026 to 57 million units, according to preliminary data from Counterpoint Research. Shipments were also down 13.8% from the previous quarter.

Why shipments dropped

Counterpoint points to one main cause: memory and other components are getting more expensive, and those costs are now showing up in the price of laptops and desktops. Higher prices made consumers less willing to replace a working computer. Business demand held up better, thanks to fleet refreshes and Windows migrations, but not enough to offset the fall.

The comparison also looks worse because Q3 2025 was unusually strong. Last year, people and companies bought ahead of the Windows 10 end-of-support deadline, and tariff-related stock building inflated shipments.

How the big brands did

• Lenovo: 15 million units, a 26.3% share, down 23% year on year. Still the clear leader.
• HP: 10.3 million units and an 18.1% share. Down 31%, the steepest fall among the top six vendors.
• Dell: 7.6 million units, down 25%, a 13.3% share.
• Apple: 5.6 million units, down 11%. Its share rose to 9.8% from 8.7%, and Counterpoint credits the MacBook Neo with cushioning the drop.
• ASUS: 5.2 million units, down only 7% year on year and up 19.4% on the quarter. Its share rose to 9.2%.

The top five together shipped 76.7% of all PCs. Other brands shipped 13.3 million units, down 16%.

Other trackers see the same trend. Earlier this month, Omdia put Q3 shipments at 58.1 million, down 21.2%, a very similar picture.

It may get worse before it gets better

Counterpoint expects shipments to fall 27% year on year in Q4 2026 and to stay broadly flat in 2027. Associate director David Naranjo warns that "stabilization should not be mistaken for recovery". The firm also notes that, as costs rise, PC makers are focusing on configurations that absorb them more easily, which leaves fewer cheap options for price-sensitive buyers.

What this means if you're buying

Expect fewer bargains on entry-level laptops for a while, and watch out for models that save money by cutting memory. Our guide to how much RAM you need explains where 8 GB stops being enough. Storage is under the same price pressure, so our SSD buying guide is worth a look before you upgrade an older machine instead. If you want to run AI models locally, memory matters even more, as our laptop for local AI guide shows.