Numerous you panic-bought PCs to keep away from RAMaggedon 2026

The specter of price hikes brought on by the present AI-driven demand for reminiscence and storage seems to have satisfied a justifiable share of individuals to purchase a brand new laptop. In line with information analyzed by Counterpoint Research, world PC shipments grew round 3.2 p.c year-over-year in Q1 2026, “pushed by pre-emptive shopping for earlier than memory-led value will increase hit the retail stage” and Microsoft forcing some prospects to improve by ending support for Windows 10 last year.

Gross sales hit 63.3 million items in the course of the first quarter, Counterpoint says, and have been significantly concentrated in 5 high-end PC makers: Lenovo, ASUS, Apple, HP and Dell. Of the 5, Lenovo instructions probably the most PC market share at 26 p.c, however gross sales elevated for nearly the entire firms, save for HP, whose year-over-year gross sales technically declined by 5 p.c. Of explicit notice, Apple’s PC gross sales grew by 11 p.c, probably on the power of the M5 updates it made to the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, and the introduction of the inexpensive $600 MacBook Neo. Counterpoint suggests the updates might drive even additional gross sales progress subsequent quarter.

Even with constructive gross sales, the PC trade as an entire is certainly not out of the woods. “The aggressive growth in AI infrastructure funding is driving up total part prices, which can probably affect the pricing of CPUs and different key parts in [PCs],” Counterpoint Senior Analyst Minsoo Kang says. “Finally, the sustained upward strain on prices and the ensuing hike in retail costs are anticipated to have a big detrimental affect on the PC market’s progress in 2026.”

A basic sense that the worst is but to return is in keeping with what different analysts have warned in regards to the present shortages of RAM and storage. In December 2025, IDC predicted that PC shipments could drop as much as 8.9 percent in 2026 in response to the value of RAM, and later revised its prediction to 11.6 percent this previous March. Even when customers aren’t feeling the worst of those value hikes simply but, new bulletins of value will increase appear to reach like clockwork each few weeks — for instance, this week, Meta raised the price of its Quest headsets — which suggests if they are not feeling them now, they’ll quickly.