Worldwide PC shipments totalled 62.7 million units in the third quarter of 2026, a 20.1 per cent decline from the same period a year earlier, IDC reported on 8 October. The drop is the second consecutive quarterly decline and broke the typical seasonal pattern, with shipments falling 9.1 per cent sequentially from the second quarter.
The decline was driven by supply constraints, higher prices, logistical disruption, and a pull-in of demand from earlier in 2026, when vendors and channels stocked up ahead of memory-driven price hikes, IDC said. “What we’re seeing is the result of the strong first half pull-in,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research director for consumer devices at IDC. “Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand.”
Lenovo, HP Inc and Dell Technologies all saw larger-than-market declines and lost a combined 4.2 percentage points of market share. Apple, in fourth place, shipped 5.9 million Macs, down 11.3 per cent year on year – a far smaller fall than the market – which lifted its share from 8.5 per cent to 9.5 per cent, according to IDC’s preliminary figures. AppleInsider was first to highlight the one-point gain. IDC’s figures cover traditional PCs – desktops, notebooks and workstations – excluding tablets and x86 servers.
IDC warned that the channel faces high inventory and weak demand at higher prices, and that worsening macroeconomic conditions could further dampen the outlook for the remainder of 2026 and into the next year.