Q3 2026 Was Historically Bad For PC Shipments

PC shipments fell 20.1% year over year to 62.7 million units in the third quarter of 2026, the worst Q3 decline IDC has recorded. "The top three PC makers -- Lenovo, Dell, and HP -- also saw their shipments fall by over 20% year over year," reports PCMag. From the report: "If looking at all quarters, then we have seen other quarters in recent years with larger declines, such as 2022Q4, which was -28.2%, and 2023Q1, which was -28.7%. Both were coming off pandemic highs," IDC Director Jitesh Ubrani told PCMag in an email. The numbers aren't a great sign, since third-quarter PC shipments usually outpace those in the second quarter as vendors introduce new products ahead of the holiday shopping season. Instead, PC shipments were at 62.7 million units, down 9.1% from the previous quarter. [...] Of course, the downturn isn't a surprise. IDC and other research firms have warned that the ongoing AI-driven memory shortage threatens to sap demand for PCs and phones due to soaring memory and storage costs. "What we're seeing is the result of the strong first half pull-in. Vendors and channels loaded up on inventory early in the year to get ahead of [memory-related] price hikes, and that has thrown off the usual seasonality, where Q3 is typically larger than Q2," Ubrani said in a report covering IDC's preliminary estimates for the quarter. In one bright spot, Ubrani said vendors and retailers might cut prices to generate interest and clear out products they have in stock. "Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand. That could translate into promotions and some short-term relief for consumers, but we don't expect pricing anywhere near what it was a year ago. Prices will remain elevated," he added.

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