Typically, it is during July through September that the PC industry comes alive with student needs for laptops, company fleet upgrades, and shipments going beyond spring.
However, that did not happen this year. Worldwide PC shipments declined 20.1% in the year-over-year comparison for Q3 2026, down to 62.7 million units, according to preliminary IDC results released on October 8.
In the previous year, the number stood at 78.5 million units. PC shipments also dipped 9.1% from the second quarter. The normal trend, whereby the third quarter exceeds the second, has been broken.
IDC’s narrative is the ultimate example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Suppliers and distribution channels made their purchases at the beginning of the year before rising prices in the memory space.
This contributed to the positive performance seen in the first half of the year while depriving the third quarter of the demand. For the third quarter, the channel has been selling down the volume of PCs received in the second quarter.
According to IDC, one of the key pressure points includes limited supply and higher prices due to the AI data center ramp-up. In other words, the AI boom is increasing prices of ordinary computers.
This was not felt evenly. HP shipments fell by 30.9% to 10.3 million units. Dell fell by 25% to 7.6 million, while market leader Lenovo fell by 22.6% to 14.9 million.
IDC says the three brands fell harder than the market and collectively lost 4.2 points in share.
Apple and Asus fared well in comparison. Both fell by 11.3% and 8.6%, respectively. This saw Apple increase its share of the market to 9.5%, making it one of the few good things that happened, despite falling shipments.
All five largest brands shipped fewer machines.
It is not the only set of figures from IDC suggesting a slowdown in growth. Omdia said that global laptop/desktop/workstation shipments declined by 21.2%, down to 58.1 million units. There is a difference in how both companies tally the numbers, which makes the totals different.
The data provided by Omdia suggests that the shipments of desktop computers fell by 23.5% to 11.7 million units. Shipments of laptops were down by 20.6% to 46.4 million.
The description of the data in one of the reports says that the 20.1% drop is the largest Q3 decline on record according to IDC. It should be noted that there was a larger quarter of decline during the pandemic. In Q4 2022, the shipments were down by 28.2%. In Q1 2023, the shipments fell 28.7%.
This third-quarter collapse did not happen out of the blue; it’s actually a second straight annual fall, and a much more severe fall compared to the 3.8% dip in the second quarter.
In July 2026, IDC announced a ninth-quarter decline. Earlier stockpiling had also padded the results at the start of the year.
Global unit shipments increased by 3.2% in the first quarter in spite of the challenging components environment.
A decrease of such magnitude might be considered good news for those who are looking for a new laptop to buy. According to IDC, it would be a mistake.
The channel is concerned with carrying too much inventory in the market when prices are very high and reducing consumer demand. However, IDC expects prices to be nowhere close to what we saw last year. As Jitesh Ubrani of IDC explains, "Price will remain elevated."
Another threat to consider is economic conditions. IDC claims that the economic situation has declined compared to the previous quarter and a weaker economy could potentially reduce the demand further.
