US PC shipments to fall 13% as memory and storage crunch hits budget systems

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 …

[user555]

That's gotta be an optimistic outlook

It's amazing the pain that people will accept in ignorance.

[elsergiovolador]

Worth

This is the sacrifice we make for copilot to flourish like mould.

[Dunstan Vavasour]

Less is Better

How are we assuming that it's a good thing to be churning out ever more PCs? We've long been past the point where everyone who needs/wants a PC has one, so shipments *should* be going down.

We don't have to worship at the altar of Line Go Up. Of course, the glut when we find there are no datacentres for all these machine being built ... will be its own problem.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Less is Better

COMMUNISM!

[bill 27]

Re: Less is Better

"We've long been past the point where everyone who needs/wants a PC has one."

Tell that to people in less developed countries.

[ecofeco]

I'll bet it's higher

Much higher.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Does this mirror the cost of US cars?

Mysteriously, the cost of US cars over the last few years has waaaaayyyyy outstripped the nominal inflation rate. The $muchthesamecar from 2018 costs about 40% more today. Various ideas and reasons have been put forward for this occurrence. It is really only in the last year that buyers have seriously started to baulk.

>> @Dunstan Vavasour. We've long been past the point where everyone who needs/wants a PC has one, so shipments *should* be going down.

What if you now require Windows 11 and your older PC doesn't meet the requirements? It's never going to end. When Windows 12 comes out, it will require 4TB of RAM.

[simonlb]

Re: Does this mirror the cost of US cars?

It's not just the US, the UK is the same for new cars. But just like Nvidia never reduced the price of their budget cards to pre-pandemic levels when the 'supply chain issues' eased, it seems the car manufacturers are using those price increases to ease more people into leasing renting their car instead of buying it outright, normalising the increases.

And do you think PC prices will tumble when the AI bubble explodes and there is a vast glut of storage media that is no longer needed? I'm convinced they'll hoard it to themselves to keep the prices up as there's more profit in a $1,500 PC than a $500 one, plus they will still need to recoup the Billions of dollars borrowed to buy that memory and storage.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

And if you install Linux on your old Windows 10 hardware, that's one less sale they make while you still have a perfectly usable computer.

[Anonymous Coward]

No mention of tariffs?

Given the idiocy of tariffs I would have expected to feature that in any US located cost calculation too, but I guess it's hard to derive conclusions from what is effectively a random number.

Well, not right now as he's distracted by his 'no more wars' war with Iran so it's a bit "quiet" on the tariff front. Until someone mentions Epstein too loudly again, of course, because then a new distraction is needed..