PC Market Faces 2026 Headwinds as Memory Costs Surge
After strong 2025 growth, PC makers like Dell and Lenovo are raising prices as soaring DRAM and storage costs threaten to squeeze margins and cool demand.
The global personal computer market, fresh off a robust 9% growth in shipments in 2025, is heading into a turbulent 2026 as a severe spike in memory and storage component costs threatens to derail momentum. A new report from Omdia warns that these emerging supply chain issues represent a significant threat to the industry's outlook, squeezing manufacturer margins and potentially dampening consumer demand.
The pricing pressure stems from a sharp increase in the cost of essential components. DRAM contract prices are forecast to surge by as much as 40-70% in the first quarter of 2026, with NAND flash memory prices expected to climb 30-35%, according to market analysis from TrendForce and Morgan Stanley. The cost of mainstream PC memory and storage has already jumped between 40% and 70% in the latter half of 2025.
In response, major PC manufacturers are already passing these costs on to customers. Dell Technologies and Lenovo have announced price increases of 15-20% for their products, moves that took effect in late 2025 or early 2026. This direct-to-consumer price action underscores the severity of the cost inflation. According to research cited by bisi.org.uk, memory components now account for 15-18% of a PC's total production cost, a figure that has doubled from 2024 levels, leaving manufacturers with little room to absorb the increases.
A key driver of the memory crunch is the voracious appetite of the artificial intelligence sector. Burgeoning demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI servers is redirecting capital and manufacturing capacity away from consumer-grade DRAM, creating a supply bottleneck for the PC industry.
This confluence of factors is beginning to cloud the demand picture. After a year of recovery driven by commercial upgrades and the first wave of AI-enabled PCs, the rising prices are expected to cool purchasing activity. Omdia projects that notebook shipments will decline by 2.4% year-over-year in 2026, a reversal from the prior year's positive trend.
The dynamic creates a complex forecast for the broader semiconductor and PC component sector. While memory producers may benefit from significant pricing power, PC makers like HP, Dell, and Apple face a challenging balancing act: protect margins without alienating price-sensitive consumers. Investors will be closely watching upcoming earnings reports for guidance on how companies are navigating the most significant component cost inflation the industry has seen in several years.