Omdia and IDC Report PC Shipments Fell About 20 Percent in Q3 2026

Global PC shipments fell about 20 percent year over year in the third quarter of 2026, according to separate reports from Omdia and IDC. Omdia put the total at 58.1 million units, a decline of roughly 20 percent, and said it was the sharpest drop since Q1 2023.

Omdia reported that desktop PC shipments fell 23.5 percent to 11.7 million units, while laptop shipments declined 20.6 percent to 46.4 million units.

IDC recorded a slightly smaller year-over-year decline of 20.1 percent, with 62.7 million units shipped in Q3 2026. That compared with 68.2 million units in Q2 2026, a quarter-over-quarter drop of 9.1 percent. IDC said the 20.1 percent year-over-year decline was the biggest drop it has recorded for a third quarter.

IDC attributed the weak quarter to earlier stockpiling by PC vendors and sales channels, which bought up inventory in anticipation of memory price hikes and left minimal demand in Q3.

Context

In Q3 2025, 78.5 million PCs shipped, according to IDC. The last declines of comparable scale were in Q4 2022 and Q1 2023, at 28.2 percent and 28.7 percent respectively, both coming off pandemic highs, IDC's Jitesh Ubrani told PCMag.