The global PC market is heading into another rough stretch, and IDC’s latest outlook makes it clear this downturn is not a temporary wobble. According to the firm, worldwide PC shipments are now expected to fall 11.3 percent in 2026, with the decline accelerating as the year goes on. By the time we reach the fourth quarter, IDC expects shipments to be down a steep 20 percent year over year. That kind of drop would be alarming in any cycle, but IDC says this one has a very specific culprit: a persistent, industry‑wide memory shortage that will not meaningfully improve until late 2027.
IDC notes that the first quarter of 2026 briefly created the illusion of a rebound. Shipments actually grew 3 percent compared to the same period last year, which would normally signal a market finding its footing. Instead, IDC says that early strength was “borrowed from the future.” Buyers rushed to secure systems before prices climbed and before certain configurations became harder to find. As Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC’s Vice President of Devices and Consumers, puts it, “The anticipation of rising prices and of limited availability of some system configurations due to memory and other component shortages has led some end‑users to make purchases earlier than anticipated.” He adds that IDC sees “no relief to the memory shortage situation before the end of 2027,” which means rising prices and thinner product portfolios will be the norm for quite a while.
That pull‑forward demand is still giving Q2 a bit of momentum, but IDC expects the rest of the year to deteriorate quarter by quarter. The combination of constrained DRAM and NAND supply, higher component costs, and limited configuration availability is pushing average selling prices up across the board. IDC forecasts ASP growth of 17 percent in 2026, and even as memory capacity expands in the following years, pricing is unlikely to return to 2025 levels. In other words, the era of cheap PCs is officially over for now.
There is one wildcard in the mix: Apple’s MacBook Neo. IDC says the Neo has driven stronger-than-expected notebook demand and forced the firm to revise its notebook forecast upward. But the Neo’s impact cuts both ways. “The introduction of the MacBook Neo is putting real pressure on the entire PC ecosystem,” says Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Consumer Devices Trackers. He expects vendors to counter with new silicon, a more efficient Windows experience, and aggressive promotions. Those moves may keep some lower-cost notebooks alive, but they will not reverse the broader trend of rising prices and shrinking supply flexibility.
Taken together, IDC paints a picture of a market squeezed from multiple directions. Supply constraints are structural, not cyclical. Macroeconomic uncertainty is still weighing on both consumer and commercial spending. And platform‑level disruption from Apple’s latest hardware is forcing PC vendors to rethink their roadmaps while juggling component scarcity. For buyers, the window for favorable pricing is closing fast. For vendors, the challenge is maintaining a full portfolio when key components are in short supply.
