Many people panic buy computers to avoid RAMmagon 2026

ghost price increase The current demand for memory and storage driven by artificial intelligence seems to have convinced a significant number of people to buy new computers. According to data Counterpoint Research AnalysisIn the first quarter of 2026, global PC shipments increased by about 3.2% year-on-year, “driven by rush to buy before memory-led price increases reach retail levels” and Microsoft forcing some customers to upgrade Support for Windows 10 ended last year.

Counterpoint said sales in the first quarter reached 63.3 million units, especially concentrated among five high-end PC manufacturers: Lenovo, Asus, Apple, HP and Dell. Of the five companies, Lenovo holds the largest PC market share at 26%, but almost all of them saw sales increase, with the exception of HP, which technically saw sales drop 5% year over year. Of particular note is Apple’s PC sales, which grew by 11%, likely due to updates to its M5 MacBook Pro and MacBook Airand launches at an affordable $600 MacBook Neo. Counterpoint said the updates could drive further sales growth next quarter.

Even with good sales, the PC industry as a whole is not out of the woods. “The significant expansion of investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure is driving up overall component costs, which may affect the pricing of CPUs and other key components in PCs,” said Minsoo Kang, senior analyst at Counterpoint. “Ultimately, continued upward cost pressure and the resulting increase in retail prices are expected to have a significant impact on the growth of the PC market in 2026.”

The consensus is that the worst is yet to come, which is consistent with other analysts’ warnings about the current RAM and storage shortages. IDC forecasts PC shipments in December 2025 The drop could be as high as 8.9% In order to cope with the price of RAM in 2026, after Forecast revised to 11.6% March this year. Even if consumers haven’t felt the worst of these price hikes yet, new price hike announcements seem to come out on time every few weeks — this week, for example, Meta Increased price of Quest headsets — which means that if they don’t feel it now, they will soon.