Global PC shipments crater 20% as rising prices hammer demand

The global PC market has taken a beating, with shipments plunging more than 20 percent in the third quarter as the AI-driven memory shortage pushes up prices and buyers decide their existing machines will do just fine. New figures from Omdia show worldwide shipments of desktops, notebooks, and workstations fell 21.2 percent year-on-year to 58.1 million units in Q3 2026. IDC tells a similar story, estimating a 20.1 percent decline to 62.7 million units. The research firms differ on shipment totals, but agree the market has gone from bad to considerably worse. The downturn follows a rush to buy PCs earlier this year, when manufacturers, distributors, and corporate customers brought forward orders to get ahead of anticipated price increases. That helped prop up shipments in the first half of 2026, but left the industry with a pile of inventory and fewer buyers in the third quarter. …