US PC sales grow by 3% in late 2025 as companies and consumers scrambled to replace Windows 10 — 2026 forecast sees 13% drop as storage and memory prices expected to climb another 60%

PC shipments in the U.S. increased by 3% year-on-year in the 4th quarter of 2025, resulting in overall sales of 18.2 million units. According to research firm Omdia, this growth was driven by holiday demand, the need to replace older computers running Windows 10 with a more modern system, and retailers securing inventory before the worst of the chip shortage hit. This resulted in an overall PC market growth of 3% in 2025, offsetting the lackluster performance of the two previous quarters. However, RAM and storage costs mean Omdia predicts a 13% contraction in 2026, with PC and memory costs expected to rise a further 60%.

“Q4 marked a meaningful inflection point for the U.S. PC market. After two quarters of year-on-year decline, the market returned to growth driven by solid performances across both the consumer and commercial segments,” Omdia Research Manager Keiren Jessop said. “Commercial shipments rose 6% to 8.2 million units — the fourth consecutive quarter of annual growth — underpinned by holiday spending and a product mix shift to more affordable price ranges. The commercial segment grew 4% as enterprises continued their Windows 11 migration, particularly in the final stretch before the Windows 10 end-of-support deadline in October.”

Unfortunately, the current chip shortage is pointing to a 13% contraction of the market this year, Omdia warns. Memory and storage costs continue to increase, with Omdia expecting a further 60% increase. Aside from that, we’re also starting to see reports of Intel and AMD CPU shortages among system integrators, with order lead times going up as high as six months. While the entire market is affected by these shortages, the entry-level PC market would be the one hardest hit, with some saying that it will disappear by 2028.

“Looking ahead, the outlook for 2026 is significantly more cautious. Memory and storage costs have risen 40-70% since the start of 2025, and Omdia expects at least a further 60% increase in mainstream PC memory and storage costs in Q1 2026,” Jessop added. “These supply constraints are expected to have the greatest impact on the sub-$500 segment, which includes most education and entry-level consumer devices.”

Apple is the only company that has gone against the trend of increasing prices and decreasing memory and storage capacities. The launch of the MacBook Neo caught the entire PC industry by surprise, especially with its $599 price point ($499 if you get the education discount). Aside from that, the M5 MacBook Air also received a higher base storage capacity of 512GB, although that came with a $100 price bump.

This forecast is in line with the predictions of other analysts, saying that PC shipments will drop this year. Despite that, the overall value is still expected to rise because of the shortage-driven price hikes. Omdia expects shipments to grow by 7% in 2027 to more than 66 million units, but this is still below 2025’s 71.5 million units.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.