PC sales are up, but don’t be fooled — IDC report warns RAMageddon is just getting started

In the heart of RAMageddon, data is our only weapon. IDC just dropped its take in a new report for PC sales in Q1 2026, and it’s a bleak outlook for us. You may see that global PC shipments are up 2.5% year-over-year, but this is a red herring, as prices are about to get volatile.

In its report, the analysis shows some big gains for Asus and Apple far beyond the 2.5% average, but warns that three things could send those PC prices skyrocketing. Let’s take a look at them, and I’ll tell you what you should do now.

The red herring

Just one look at these numbers may make you think that it’s been a brilliant quarter for computing and a true PC boom is upon us. The biggest winner is Asus, with a 17.1% increase in market share over Q1 last year, while HP shrank by nearly 5%.

But this has actually been driven by something else — panic driven by a perfect storm of three problems that show the 2.5% increase is a peak rather than a trend:

• Panic buying: People aren’t buying because they want to; they’re buying because they’re afraid they won’t be able to afford it in six months. The growth has been fueled by the anticipation of rising prices.
• A double-edged sword: “The Middle East conflict has injected a fresh layer of volatility into a fragile computing devices market, straining global logistics through a double-edged sword of rising energy costs and freight spikes,” said Isaac Ngatia, senior research analyst, IDC Devices Research. Even if a laptop is built, getting it to a shelf is becoming a premium expense that will be passed to the consumer.
• RAM price crisis: You already know the deal with this. Internal components like RAM and SSDs are hitting a supply wall, which always leads to raising MSRPs. You can blame the AI boom (or bubble) for that.

“As expected, 2026 will be characterized by market share shifts,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research vice-president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. “The strength of every PC vendor’s supply chain and ability to access core components, such as memory, will be tested.”

But amongst all of this, I still believe that there is light at the end of this tunnel. It’s a glimpse (maybe even a foolish hope), but I see it. Let me explain.

What should you do?

It goes back to the chat I had with Carmen Li, Founder and CEO of Silicon Data, about the pricing trends of RAM. Cracks are starting to show — OpenAI’s letter of intent to spend $1.4 trillion on memory has been reset to $600 billion, half of the planned US data centers have either been delayed or canceled, and new Chinese memory companies are close to certification for consumer tech.

Throw in the potential tariff refunds, and things could get interesting. But for all that we say, it’s not like anyone has seen the prices go down on Amazon or Newegg. DDR5 component prices may be going down, but a perfect storm of these other elements is counteracting this and not causing a full-blown crash.

So what should you do? Chances are, if you’re looking for a new laptop, you’re on a spectrum of need — either you’re just browsing, or maybe you’re still on a Windows 10 machine and desperate to upgrade. To help you, I need to update my recommendations to you right now.

• If you need a new laptop now, buy old stock now: Retailers are currently clearing out 2025 models, and all the 2026 systems I’ve tested have hit price hikes due to these very reasons. One look at Best Buy shows some impressive savings on options like last year’s Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1.
• If you don’t need a new laptop now, wait for more clarity in August: By this point, we’ll see whether these upcoming events will make for that downturn in pricing we all need on new models. Of course, this doesn’t take into account whether the conflict will end, and if that continues, we could continue to see trouble, and you’ll have to wait longer.

This Q1 “growth” is actually a market in panic — buyers rushing to the exit before the affordability door slams shut. I don’t think it’s going to close completely, and through the gap, there’s a reason to be optimistic. It just comes down to how optimistic you feel and how much you need a laptop right now.

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