The International Data Corporation (IDC) has released a new update to the outlook for the device market, and the message is direct: things are getting worse. Under recently announced pessimistic scenarios, PC shipments could decline by up to 9% in 2026, with a more moderate scenario showing a market contraction of 5%. These figures were revised after a 2.5% drop recently published in IDC forecast for November.
Since then, the global memory shortage, which began accelerating in mid-October, has intensified beyond what IDC initially modeled. Although the company is not formally rewriting its official forecasts entirely, it is now presenting significantly more pessimistic scenarios than those it predicted just a few weeks ago.
Largest OEMs like DellHP, Lenovo and ASUS are expected to weather this environment better than smaller suppliers due to their size, inventory leverage and long-term supply agreements. Small regional brands, white box manufacturers and DIY system builders are much more exposed, particularly on gaming PCs, where high memory configurations are standard, and cost sensitivity is high. IDC suggests that this dynamic could shift market share further toward large OEMs, even as the overall market contracts.
There’s a particular irony in how this environment intersects with the industry’s PC AI narrative. IDC defines an AI PC simply as a system with an NPU, but in practice these machines also require more RAM. MicrosoftCopilot+’s requirements alone set a 16GB floor, and many high-end designs aim for 32GB or more. The problem is that memory is precisely the component that is becoming the rarest and most expensive. As vendors attempt to sell branded AI systems to consumers, the economics of building these systems are deteriorating.
This tension is compounded by the fact that the marketing push for PC AI did not produce growth the sellers hoped. User enthusiasm has been dampened, and frustration with the rapid and often forced integration of AI features — especially under Windows 11 – is increasingly visible. In this context, the higher prices of AI PCs look less like an opportunity to upgrade and more like a tax on features that many buyers didn’t ask for.
A 9% slowdown may not sound apocalyptic, but it’s pretty serious. During the global financial crisis of 2009, the PC market fell 11.9%– the most marked decline in history at that time. The only worse event happened a few years ago, in the post-pandemic period, due to market saturation, and the industry is still in shock from this drop of almost 15%. Additionally, this happens when the market should to be in full swing; Normally, 2026 would be a major growth year due to the Windows 10 support cliff, as well as the AI PC wave.
Instead, IDC’s conclusion is cautious but unequivocal: What started as an AI infrastructure boom is unintentionally reshaping consumer hardware markets. The memory shortage is tightening supply, inflating prices and forcing suppliers to rethink product roadmaps at exactly the wrong time. 2025 was already tough for the PC market, with GPUs scarce in the field and few other ways to convince buyers to upgrade their perfectly usable machines.
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