Behind the 40% Drop in Laptop Sales: Price Hikes and the Escalating Battle with the "Wait-and-See" Party

Jingjing Reporter Wu Qing, Beijing Reported

At the end of March 2026, in Beijing’s Zhongguancun, the various brand computer retail stores that were lively toward the end of last year are now somewhat quiet. Xiaozhang, a salesperson at a mainstream computer brand store, told a reporter from the 《China Business News》 with helplessness: “When the market was doing well in the second half of last year, I could sell more than ten units in a day; now, it’s already good if I can open a few orders a day.” His experience is one side of the current situation in China’s laptop computer market.

According to the latest data from Lustplus Technology, in January–February 2026, China’s online retail sales volume of laptop computers was only 947,000 units, down 40.5% year over year; sales revenue was RMB 5.99 billion, with the decline also exceeding 40%. Both volume and value fell, creating one of the rarest opening-year declines in recent years.

This “false-spring cold snap” came somewhat suddenly, but it is also understandable. During our visits, we found that the AI-driven price-hike frenzy, the demand exhaustion after the withdrawal of national subsidies, and consumers’ increasingly rational purchasing mindset are jointly reshaping the structure of this billion-dollar-level market.

From “national-subsidy dividend” to “price discouragement”

Looking back at 2025, the laptop market was still a picture of prosperity. Under the dual stimulus of national subsidy policies and the Windows 10 end-of-support upgrade wave, the full-year online sales reached 13.44 million units, up 9% year over year. However, this prosperity sowed the seeds for the drop in 2026.

“The high base in 2025 and the effect of early consumption are the direct reasons for the demand pullback this year.” A consumption electronics industry analyst who asked not to be named told the reporter. When large numbers of potential consumers had already completed their upgrades last year, the market demand vacuum in the first half of 2026 naturally followed.

But more importantly, the reason came from the upstream supply chain. Since the second half of 2025, global demand for DRAM and NAND flash memory chips for AI servers has surged. The memory demand per AI server is 8–10 times that of a regular server. This caused storage giants such as Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron to shift advanced production capacity to producing high-profit HBM (high-bandwidth memory), directly squeezing the supply of traditional storage chips for consumer electronics.

The result of an imbalance between supply and demand is soaring prices. The price of mainstream DDR4 8Gb chips jumped from the 2025 low of $3.2 to $15, a cumulative increase of 369%. As a core component accounting for as much as 15%–20% of a laptop’s BOM (bill of materials), the surge in storage costs forces system integrators to pass the pressure on to consumers.

So a wave of collective price hikes swept across the market. At the end of 2025, Lenovo was the first to send price-adjustment letters to channel partners, and some high-end business laptops had their prices raised by 20%. Entering 2026, brands such as HP, Dell, ASUS, and Acer followed suit. ASUS announced that it would raise the prices of all its laptops (including gaming laptops) by 15%–25%; Acer’s selected models saw increases of 10%–20%.

The source of this round of price hikes points directly to the storage chip market. Since the third quarter of 2025, the global storage market has started a disruptive price-hike cycle. According to data from TrendForce, the spot prices of DRAM and NAND flash memory have increased cumulatively by over 300%. Taking the most common DDR5 16GB memory stick on the market as an example: before September 15, 2025, the price was around RMB 300, but by January 2026 it had risen to RMB 1,200–1,400.

What’s even more concerning for the market is that the price hikes are spreading from storage chips to other electronic components. TrendForce states that Intel has adjusted the quotes for some entry-level and older-generation laptop CPUs, with increases of more than 15%. The company plans to further raise prices for mainstream to mid-to-high-end platforms in the second quarter of 2026. This means laptop computers’ cost pressure is still rising.

“We’re not trying to raise prices, but we can’t keep the business running if we don’t raise prices.” A brand computer channel partner admitted to the reporter. And for user groups that are not a necessity and are budget-sensitive, such levels of price hikes are no different from “discouraging purchases.”

New opportunities in the “cold wave”

Although the overall market is sluggish, laptops are showing a clear “K-shaped” split. High-end models above RMB 10,000 benefit from the rigid demand of professional users and last year’s subsidy dividend, with their share rising year over year; entry-level models below RMB 6,000 also see volumes grow due to stable rigid demand. Meanwhile, the mid-range market of RMB 6,000–9,000 becomes the “collapsed area” hit hardest by the price-hike shock.

Consumers’ reactions also confirm this. “My i9-12900 with 48G DDR5 can still last for good years; prices can go up however they want,” a veteran DIY player told the reporter. Another gamer said: “My previously bought computer’s performance was seriously overkill; I can wait a bit longer.” This mindset of “keeping cash and waiting” or “waiting a bit longer” has resonated widely on social platforms.

Gartner’s latest forecast also validates this trend. The organization expects that, affected by rising memory costs, global PC shipments in 2026 will decline by 10.4%, and the PC usage life for enterprise and individual users will be extended by 15% and 20%, respectively. Even more seriously, Gartner’s Senior Research Director Ranjit Atwal warned that by 2028, the entry-level PC market below $500 may completely disappear.

Ranjit Atwal pointed out that memory costs’ share of PC BOM material costs has risen sharply, and manufacturers can no longer absorb cost increases on their own the way they did in the past.

At the same time, TrendForce estimates that if brand manufacturers and the channel end are to maintain the existing gross-margin structure, for a mainstream model with an original suggested retail price of $900, the terminal retail price increase may be close to 40%. Omdia expects that global PC shipments in 2026 will drop by 12% to 245 million units.

The reporter noticed that, facing the complicated market environment today, major brands are actively trying to rescue themselves. For example, Lenovo, on the one hand, maintains student subsidies to stabilize demand; on the other hand, it accelerates the introduction of domestically made Changxin storage chips to reduce costs. HP, meanwhile, chooses to launch “low-spec” models, controlling price while still meeting basic office needs. More brands are also starting to invest in experience upgrades such as OLED screens, high-refresh-rate screens, and AI features, trying to attract users through differentiation.

Looking ahead, market research institutions generally expect that, in the short term, laptop cost pressure will continue. UBS said that, against the backdrop of strong AI demand continuing to squeeze supply, the memory industry is entering a severe supply shortage year that happens once in a decade, and the price-hike momentum will last at least through the third or fourth quarter of 2026. Counterpoint calculates that memory prices in the first quarter of 2026 will rise another 40%–50%, and in the second quarter are expected to rise by about another 20%.

In response, industry insiders suggest that all parties need to prepare for the long term. The above-mentioned analyst from the consumer electronics industry said that for brand manufacturers, they should accelerate product-structure optimization, strengthen technology barriers in the high-end market, and also control costs in the entry-level market through supply-chain innovation. This AI-driven cold wave in the PC market is both a challenge and an opportunity for industry reshuffling.

“The penetration rate of AI PCs is approaching 45%. The key to winning users will be how to put those functions into real use, rather than using them merely as marketing gimmicks,” the analyst said. For consumers, if it’s not an urgent need, it may be best to patiently wait for possible price pullbacks that could occur in the second half of the year. For users with rigid needs, they can focus on entry-level models below RMB 6,000 or special offers launched by brands.

“Short-term cost pressure and low shipment volumes will still continue.” Lustplus Technology noted in its report that in the fourth quarter of 2026, storage production capacity is expected to flow back toward the consumer end, price increases may narrow, and the industry may see a mild rebound. But before that, the laptop market still needs to go through a period of “pain,” and the “wait-and-see crowd” may have to keep waiting for some time.

(Editor: Zhang Jingchao Review: Li Zhenghao Proofread: Yan Yuxia)

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