LONDON -- The latest research from Omdia shows that US PC shipments (excluding tablets) grew 3% year-on-year in Q4 2025 to 18.2 million units, reversing two consecutive quarters of annual decline. The return to growth was driven by a combination of the peak of Windows 11 commercial refreshes, holiday-season demand, and vendor efforts to secure inventory ahead of anticipated memory and storage supply constraints in 2026. Full-year 2025 shipments reached 71.5 million units, up 3% from 2024, but 2026 shipments are now forecast to decline 13% year-on-year due to highly constrained supply of memory and storage products.

“Q4 marked a meaningful inflection point for the US PC market,” said Kieren Jessop, Research Manager at Omdia. “After two quarters of year-on-year decline, the market returned to growth driven by solid performances across both the consumer and commercial segments. Consumer 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.”

Jessop continued, “The education segment remains a weak spot, declining 11% in Q4, although this was a notable improvement from the 29% drop in Q3 and the 16% decline in Q2. Reduced federal and state funding continues to weigh on school procurement, but we believe much of the inventory overhang that characterized the middle of the year has now been cleared. Government shipments edged up 1%, stabilizing after the sharp pullback earlier in 2025.”

“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. These supply constraints are expected to have the greatest impact on the sub-$500 segment, which includes most education and entry-level consumer devices. As thinner margins and lower allocation priority constrain the low-end market, smaller vendors are especially at risk of being squeezed out of the market,” Jessop added.

Omdia forecasts US PC shipments to decline 13% in 2026 to approximately 61.9 million units before recovering modestly in 2027.