New PC purchases see sharpest drop in nearly three years as memory and storage prices bite

New PC shipments in the U.S. dropped to 15.8 million units in Q1 2026, a 7% year-over-year decline—the steepest drop in nearly three years. According to Omdia, this downturn is primarily driven by sup... Read original →

Soaring memory and storage chip prices are triggering structural realignment across the PC industry. Technically, with DRAM and NAND now consuming nearly a quarter of BOM costs, OEMs are eliminating sub-$200 SKUs, while 3nm logic capacity is diverted to AI data centers, starving consumer segments. On the compliance front, looming U.S. tariffs and export controls amplify inventory risks for Samsung and SK hynix across Korea and Taiwan, China. Market strategies diverge: Dell leverages localized supply chains to hold ground, whereas HP and Acer suffer from overexposure to the collapsing education sector; Apple tests a new affordability threshold with the $699 MacBook Neo. Over the next 18 months, entry-level PCs will vanish faster than anticipated. If AI server demand continues siphoning advanced-node capacity, a meaningful consumer electronics recovery may not materialize before 2027.