The headline number needs some unpacking. IDC consumer devices research director Jitesh Ubrani said the fall is partly the result of a "strong first half pull-in": vendors and channels stockpiled inventory earlier in the year to get ahead of expected price hikes, which distorted the usual seasonal pattern where the third quarter is larger than the second. In other words, some of the drop reflects earlier buying rather than a sudden collapse in demand.

The shortage behind those price hikes traces back to AI data centres. Hyperscalers have been pouring money into HBM, the high-bandwidth memory used alongside AI GPUs, prompting memory makers to shift production away from consumer chips. Micron, for example, killed off its Crucial RAM and SSD brand in late 2025 to focus on data centre production. Memory prices have climbed by as much as 500%, with 128GB of DDR5 now costing as much as $3,399.

The big three bore the brunt: Lenovo shipments fell 22.6%, HP's dropped 30.9% and Dell's contracted 25%, though they still lead the market with shares of 23.8%, 16.5% and 12.1% respectively. Apple fell 11.3%, Asus 8.6%, and the rest of the market shipped 14% less.

Not everyone agrees on how long this lasts. Acer CEO Jason Chen has argued the shortage fears are being hyped to protect memory makers' margins, and estimates PC prices will decline in the latter half of 2027 as Chinese memory capacity comes online. IDC, by contrast, warns prices will remain elevated and that the outlook could get worse before it gets better.