PC shipments saw a sharp drop of around 20 percent in the third quarter of 2026, analysts reported this week.
The industry saw its “steepest decline since the first quarter of 2023,” Omdia said in an announcement today. Global shipments of laptops, desktops and workstations fell 21.2 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) to 58.1 million devices, the analyst said.
Shipments of desktop PCs (including desktop workstations) decreased 23.5 percent to 11.7 million units, and shipments of laptop computers (including mobile workstations) decreased 20.6 percent to 46.4 million, according to Omdia.
IDC shared similar findings. The analyst said this week that PC shipments fell 20.1 percent year-on-year to 62.7 million units, compared with 78.5 million in the third quarter of 2025.
The industry also shipped 9.1 percent fewer PCs in the third quarter of 2026 than in the second quarter of 2026, when 68.2 million units were shipped, according to IDC.
The 20.1 percent year-over-year drop is the largest drop IDC has ever recorded during the third quarter of a year, IDC said, according to PCMag.
The drop in shipments is also notable considering that third-quarter PC shipments generally exceed second-quarter numbers.
“If we look at every quarter, we’ve seen other quarters in recent years with larger declines, like Q4 2022, which was -28.2 percent, and Q1 2023, which was -28.7 percent. Both were coming off pandemic highs,” Jitesh Ubrani, director of consumer device research at IDC, told PCMag.
In its announcement this week, IDC said that many PC vendors and sales channels stocked up on PC shipments earlier in the year in anticipation of increases in memory prices. That meant minimal demand remained throughout the third quarter.
“[Sales] “Channels are now concerned about bringing too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand,” Ubrani said in a statement.
