Global PC Shipments Fell 20.1% in a Single Quarter. The Industry's Revenue Is Still Going Up

IDC published preliminary third-quarter numbers on October 8. Worldwide PC shipments came to 62.7 million units, down 20.1% from 78.5 million a year earlier, and down 9.1% from the second quarter. The third quarter is normally the year's second-strongest, carried by back-to-school and commercial refresh. This one came in below the quarter before it.

The reason is not that people stopped wanting computers. It is that memory got expensive, and the industry spent the first half of the year buying ahead of that.

The quarter, by vendor

Two vendors gained share in the quarter — Apple, to 9.5%, and Asus, to 8.7%. Neither sold more machines. They declined less than the market, which in a contraction of this size is what a share gain is made of. Apple shipped roughly 800,000 fewer Macs than a year ago and finished a full point higher in the standings.

Pull-in, then hangover

IDC's explanation is mechanical. Vendors and channels bought inventory through the first half of the year, ahead of memory price increases they could see coming, which moved demand out of the third quarter and into the first and second. Supply constraints did the rest.

What we're seeing is the result of the strong first half pull-in. — Jitesh Ubrani, research director for consumer devices, IDC

That inventory is now sitting in a market where the machines cost more than they did a year ago. Ubrani said channels are worried about carrying too much of it into conditions where high prices are suppressing demand, and that the worry could produce promotions — without bringing prices back near last year's levels.

The underlying squeeze has not eased. TrendForce's late-September projection had conventional DRAM contract prices rising another 10–15% quarter over quarter in Q4, and NAND flash 15–20%, with PC DRAM supply expected to stay tight into 2027. IDC's own device forecast said the same more bluntly: the company does not expect relief before the end of 2027. The demand pulling that supply away is AI server memory, which pays better than a consumer DIMM and will keep doing so.

The units fall; the money does not

This is the part that makes the quarter worth reading rather than just noting. IDC's forecast earlier this year had full-year 2026 shipments falling 11.3%, from 284.7 million units to about 252.5 million — and the market's value rising 1.6%, to roughly $274 billion, on average selling price growth it put at 17% for the year.

So the PC industry is on course to ship something like 32 million fewer computers in 2026 than in 2025 and collect slightly more money for it. Unit demand is the thing absorbing the shock, not revenue. That is a reasonable outcome for vendors and a bad one for buyers, and it shows up in the specification sheet as well as the price: TrendForce notes that some brands are cutting SSD capacities in mainstream models to hold the bill of materials down.

What this says about the buildout

AI infrastructure is normally measured on its own terms — capex guidance, gigawatts contracted, the revenue of the companies selling accelerators. The TSMC and Nvidia numbers describe the side of the ledger where the money arrives.

This quarter is the other side, and it is the first time the cost has been this legible. Memory is a fungible commodity with one global supply curve, and when the highest bidder is a data centre, the laptop loses. The result is 15.8 million fewer computers shipped in three months, higher prices on the ones that shipped, and smaller drives inside them.

Apple walks into this with a timing problem of its own. It has confirmed an October 13 event, and reporting points to further Mac hardware later in October. New hardware priced against a memory market like this one is a harder product decision than it was a year ago — and Apple's own Mac revenue figure, which is not the same thing as IDC's shipment estimate, arrives with its fiscal fourth-quarter results.

One caution on all of the above: these are preliminary tracker estimates, not audited vendor disclosures, and IDC revises them. The direction is not in doubt. Lenovo, HP and Dell each lost more than a fifth of their volume in a quarter, and no vendor in the top five grew.

Sources: IDC: PC Market Enters Volatile Territory as Memory Shortage Persists Through 2027 · Notebookcheck: Global PC shipments plunge 20% as shortages push up prices · 9to5Mac: Mac shipments drop 11% in Q3 as global PC market slides 20% · Wccftech: PC shipments fell 20.1% in Q3 2026 · Dataconomy: Global PC shipments fall 20.1% year over year in Q3 · TrendForce: AI Server Demand Sustains Memory Contract Price Increases in 4Q26 · Tom's Hardware: IDC slashes 2026 PC shipment forecast amid memory shortages