ITE Tech's stable first-quarter results and planned price increases from the second half of 2026 signal potential cost pass-through across global PC, notebook, and embedded markets, affecting device makers and buyers worldwide as memory and component costs climb and inventory strategies shift in response to anticipated further price rises.

Rising memory prices are reshaping the global PC market: stronger first-half notebook shipments are propping up revenue, but surging component costs threaten gross margins and are prompting cautious second-half planning by ODMs and brands, which are increasingly pivoting toward AI servers for relatively better profitability despite similar inflationary pressures and uncertainty.

Demand for PC, notebook, and other IT application chips in the first half of 2026 remains relatively strong, driven not only by memory and CPU shortages and price increases, but also by solid pull-in demand for peripheral chips. Many industry players say the current buying momentum is stronger than in a typical seasonal low and reflects customers' expectations that component costs will keep rising

Radio frequency (RF) front-end chip maker RichWave said on May 4 that Wi-Fi 7 momentum will remain very strong in the first quarter of 2026, even as rising memory and component costs squeeze profitability and cloud order visibility. The company said memory-driven price increases are affecting the broader networking industry, but the impact on its 2026 growth will be limited.

AMD is expecting the memory crunch to hit its gaming business in the second half of the year, with revenue expected to decline by "more than 20%."