PC market witnessed a massive contraction in Q3 of 2026: Gartner

Global personal computer (PC) market witnessed a massive contraction in the third quarter of 2026, with worldwide shipments plummeting 22.4% year-over-year to total 55.4 million units, according to data released by market tracker, Gartner. 

This steep downturn has effectively dragged shipment volumes back down to levels last seen in the first quarter of 2023. Unlike previous market slumps driven by excess inventory, this recent collapse was primarily triggered by severe component cost inflation, it said. 

“The impact of higher memory and storage costs is now fully reflected in PC pricing. DRAM costs surged five times year-over-year in the second quarter, and PC vendors passed those higher component costs on to customers, driving the steep decline in PC shipments during the third quarter,” said Namrata Banerjee, Principal, Research at Gartner.

PC shipments have fallen to levels last seen in early 2023, though the market dynamics were noticeably different, Mt. Banerjee added. 

A fivefold surge in DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) year-over-year during the second quarter forced PC vendors to pass these higher expenses onto customers, significantly raising average selling prices and making device replacements unaffordable for many buyers.

The crunch spared no major industry players, as all top six worldwide PC vendors reported shipment declines. Market leader Lenovo mirrored the broader industry with a 22.4% year-over-year drop, leveraging its supply chain scale to maintain its top position. HP Inc. suffered the most severe blow among the leading players, recording a sharp 30.9% decline due to its high exposure to price-sensitive consumer and mainstream business segments, according to Gartner. 

Meanwhile, tech giant Apple managed to weather the storm better than its peers, registering the lowest shipment decline among the top six vendors and gaining 1.7 percentage points in market share on the back of its mainstream MacBook portfolio. 

Overall, scarce component availability forced manufacturers to reprioritise high-priced configurations, prompting corporate clients to limit spending to AI PCs and workstations instead of executing broad-based deployments.