- Gartner says PC shipments are up 4% year over year, but price increases continue to impact consumer demand.
- Apple’s success with the MacBook Neo led to increased shipments and market share
- 2026 could see a sharp drop in the number of PCs sold
New data from Gartner claims that PC shipments continued to increase in the first quarter of 2026, albeit by a relatively small 4% year-over-year margin.
However, it may not be the growth that companies were hoping for, as demand is declining as a result of continued rising costs caused by memory and chip shortages.
Instead, Gartner suggests that inventory buildup could have been the cause of the increase, and companies anticipate further price increases in the second quarter of 2026.
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PC shipments increase, but perhaps as a result of storage
Among manufacturers tracked, Apple saw the highest year-over-year growth of 12.7%, which Gartner attributes to impressive demand for the MacBook Neo among education buyers and new Mac users.
“This strategic positioning allowed Apple to attract cost-conscious consumers seeking high-performance devices, further solidifying its competitive advantage in the segment,” said research director Rishi Padhi.
Apple CEO Tim Cook declared the “best ever launch week for new Mac customers,” and many sources are now pointing to Apple increasing production capacity in 2026 to 10 million Neo devices to keep up with demand.
Apple owned 10.6% of the global PC market in the first quarter of 2026, up from 9.8% in the first quarter of 2025.
Asus saw equally impressive growth of 10.8%, followed by Lenovo at 9.5%. Dell and Acer round out the list with 7.6% and 3.9% respectively, before turning south. In reality, HP sold 4.9% fewer devices, and all other manufacturers were grouped into “other”, 4.6% less.
Looking ahead and as costs continue to rise, separate data from Omdia predicts that the global PC market could shrink by up to 12% in 2026.
“For lower-priced products, there is less room to absorb rising costs, and consumers in this segment tend to be more sensitive to price fluctuations,” added senior analyst Ben Yeh.
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