US PC shipments are set to fall by 13 percent this year thanks to the ongoing memory and storage crisis, and things are not expected to get better until next year at the earliest, with budget PCs hardest hit.
The latest forecast from research and advisory biz Omdia is that memory and storage costs will see at least a 60 percent increase during Q1 2026, which is now drawing to a close.
But this is on top of last year's rises, which the firm puts somewhat conservatively at 40 to 70 percent. Many Reg readers will testify that the price of some memory products has more than doubled already.
In fact, things have got so bad that Sony has been forced to stop taking orders for its CFexpress and SD memory card products, as reported by our sibling site Blocks & Files. This is because the firm has been unable to secure supplies of the necessary flash silicon as it is more profitable for chipmakers to provide flash for enterprise SSDs destined for AI servers.
It is likely that other memory card suppliers will be similarly affected, Blocks & Files notes, while smaller PC makers could also find themselves in a similar position with regard to DRAM if the memory shortage continues.
As The Register has reported before, this will have the largest effect on budget systems as memory already makes up a larger proportion of their overall bill of materials, and vendors may find themselves unable to put together a system at a price that will satisfy cost-conscious buyers.
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are reported to be stepping up investment in their respective wafer fabrication plants in China in a bid to boost supply of memory chips, according to South China Morning Post.
SK hynix's Wuxi facility is understood to make up more than 30 percent of its total DRAM output, while its Dalian plant produces NAND flash.
For Samsung, its Xian facility is its only external memory chip factory, said to account for about 40 percent of its NAND output.
Constructing new fabs can take up to five years, so optimizing and expanding operations at existing facilities in China could provide a faster response to the supply crisis – though perhaps not soon enough to make a difference this year.
Omdia sees US shipments falling by 13 percent to 61.9 million units during 2026, before picking up again slightly in 2027, but it is likely to be 2029 before the numbers return to their 2025 level, by its reckoning.
It forecasts that PCs priced at under $500 are likely to see a fall in units of 35 percent this year, because of the memory and storage supply issues. Those in the next segment up, the $500 to $699 category, will see shipments fall by about 20 percent.
The firm believes that systems priced between $700 and $1,099 will see a small increase, while kit at the top end – above $1,500 – will experience a decline in shipments of 12 percent.
The education sector is likely to bear the brunt of higher prices due to the memory shortage. Omdia foresees this market declining by at least 35 percent this year, and said in a recent report that ChromeOS platforms, which are widely used in education, are likely to shrink 27.6 percent year-on-year in 2026.
Consumer PC shipments are set to decline by 12.4 percent, and even commercial and public sector volumes are forecast to be down by 9.2 percent and 5.5 percent respectively.
This contrasts with Q4 2025, when the market briefly returned to growth following two quarters of year-on-year decline. This was partly due to organizations migrating to Windows 11 as the Windows 10 end-of-support deadline fell in October and the effects of the memory crisis were already starting to be felt.
"Looking ahead, the outlook for 2026 is significantly more cautious," said Omdia research manager Kieren Jessop. "As thinner margins and lower allocation priority constrain the low-end market, smaller vendors are especially at risk of being squeezed out of the market." ®
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