The Zhitong Finance App learned that Omdia's latest research shows that global PC shipments in the third quarter of 2026 fell 21.2% year on year to 58.1 million units. Lenovo (00992) took the lead (14.9 million units), HP (HPQ.US) dropped 31%, and Apple (AAPL.US) bucked the trend due to its high-end positioning share. Omdia expects the PC market to decline by 24% year over year, and further decline of 7% for the full year of 2027.
According to Omdia's latest research, global desktop, laptop and workstation shipments fell sharply in the third quarter of 2026, falling 21.2% year over year to 58.1 million units. Desktop shipments (including desktop workstations) fell 23.5% to 11.7 million units; laptop shipments (including mobile workstations) fell 20.6% to 46.4 million units.
“After continued early procurement activities supported the PC market in the first half of the year, this sharp decline in shipments is not surprising.” Omdia Research Director Ishan Dutt said, “This decline is consistent with the signals released by the industry throughout the last financial reporting period: leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) predicted a double-digit contraction in sales in the second half of the year, while retailers reported a double-digit increase in average selling price (ASP) while sales declined. The impact of rising upstream component costs has now been fully transmitted to terminal market pricing, and consumers and IT decision makers have responded accordingly. On the supply side, manufacturers and their ODM partners began reducing production in the third quarter, while channel partners continued to absorb the high inventory accumulated previously.”
Supply chain challenges have intensified in recent months. As memory and storage prices continue to rise, and there is a shortage of processors, video cards, and many integrated circuit components, PC manufacturers are facing greater difficulties in supply chain and inventory management.
“The share of DRAM and SSD costs in PCs has risen sharply from the usual 15% to nearly 40%, and the price increase has more than quadrupled.” Ben Yeh, chief analyst at Omdia, said, “Although PC vendors have raised prices several times over the past few quarters, this is not enough to fully offset this impact. These pressures are expected to continue, and the current decline may only be the beginning of a new downward cycle.”
Omdia predicts that the PC market will decline by 24% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2026, and a further 7% decline is expected for the full year of 2027.
Although most leading manufacturers experienced a double-digit decline in shipments in the third quarter of 2026, the rankings remained largely unchanged regardless of whether they were month-on-month or year-over-year. Lenovo remains at the top of the list, with shipments of 14.9 million units and maintaining a market share of 26%. Among the top manufacturers, HP saw the biggest drop, reaching 31%, and ranked second with 10.3 million units shipped. Its market share fell to 18%, down nearly 3 percentage points from the same period last year.
Dell is still in third place, with 7.6 million units shipped, accounting for 13% of the market share. Apple ranked fourth, with 6.8 million units shipped, a year-on-year decrease of 11%. However, since its high-end positioning helped mitigate the impact of rising prices, its market share bucked the trend and increased by more than 1 percentage point. Asus ranked in the top five, with the smallest drop among major manufacturers, with a shipment volume of 5.4 million units, and a year-on-year increase in market share to 9.3%.