New PC purchases see sharpest drop in nearly three years as memory and storage prices bite — shipments fall by 7%, analysts forecast 14% contraction that will hit budget laptops hard

Shipment of new PCs in the U.S. fell to 15.8 million units, dropping by 7% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026. According to research firm Omdia, this was the biggest drop in quarterly deliveries since the third quarter of 2023, and it’s primarily driven by supply shortages as well as the accompanying price increases for memory and storage chips. The threat of tariffs and the Windows 11 refresh cycle — driven by the end of Windows 10 support — has also inflated shipments last year, resulting in reduced orders today.

The research firm forecasts that the entire industry will experience a 14.4% contraction in shipments, with entry-level budget laptops bearing the brunt of the decline. We see this in the first quarter of 2026, with shipments of sub-$500 units declining by 18.7% year-over-year. This tracks with another projection that says that the entry-level PC market would “disappear” by 2028 as memory is set to account for 23% of a computer’s bill of materials — a 7% jump from last year’s 16%.

Apple released the affordable MacBook Neo earlier this year, giving us an entry-level laptop with a premium design for just $599 ($499 if you’re a student, and catching the market by surprise. Even though other manufacturers, including Dell, released a competing budget model powered by Intel Core Series 3 processors, these are often priced above the $500 threshold. Even then, Apple cannot stop the inevitable, and it recently hiked prices on several MacBook, Mac Studio, and iPad models. This pushed the price of the MacBook Neo to $699 — although it’s still relatively affordable, the laptop, which once sat on the edge of affordability for some families, is now likely out of reach.

Although shipments of PCs to consumers are expected to shrink by 11.2% this year, this is actually the best-performing sector when it comes to laptop and desktop. Orders from government units are expected to fall by 12.4%, while commercial and enterprise deliveries will contract by 13.3%. The education segment, which often focuses on entry-level devices, is hardest hit, with a projected 28.8% drop in shipments for this year alone. Despite the challenges, two PC manufacturers came out on top this quarter — both Dell and Lenovo grew by 1.1% and 1.2%, respectively, which were largely driven by increasing sales in the consumer market. On the other hand, HP, Acer, and Apple declined in numbers, contracting 21.6%, 5.4%, and 1.6% in deliveries.