The global PC market is facing a “cold winter”! Q3 shipments plummeted by more than 20%, and Apple (AAPL.US) bucked the trend to seize share

The Zhitong Finance App learned that research firm IDC said on Thursday that the personal computer (PC) market plummeted by more than 20% year on year in the third quarter due to limited supply and early inventory preparation dragging down sales. Despite the overall market downturn, Apple (AAPL.US) performed better than the market and achieved an increase in market share.

According to IDC, PC shipments in the third quarter reached 62.7 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 20.1%. IDC added that this is the second consecutive quarter of year-on-year decline in PC shipments, and the decline was significantly higher than the 3.8% decline in the second quarter. Shipments fell 9.1% month-on-month. This performance is particularly noteworthy because, judging from historical conditions, shipments in the third quarter were generally higher than in the second quarter.

Jitesh Ubrani, director of consumer equipment research at IDC, said in a statement: “The situation we are seeing so far is the result of strong advance preparation in the first half of the year. Manufacturers and channel providers prepared large quantities of goods in advance at the beginning of this year to catch up with price increases, thus disrupting the usual seasonal rules — the scale of the third quarter is usually larger than the second quarter. Now, channel providers are beginning to worry that in a market environment where high prices suppress demand, inventory may be too high. For consumers, this may mean increased promotions and some relief in the short term, but we don't expect prices to be close to what they were a year ago. Prices will remain at a high level. As the macroeconomic environment deteriorates, the risk is that the outlook for the next few quarters may deteriorate further before improving.”

Lenovo became the largest manufacturer in the PC market during the quarter, with shipments reaching 14.9 million units, accounting for 23.8% of the market share. IDC added that this performance was weaker than in the third quarter of 2025, when Lenovo shipped 19.3 million units and had a market share of 24.6%.

Apple's performance was better than the overall market, accounting for 9.5% of the market share by the end of the quarter, up from 8.5% in the third quarter of 2025. However, like other rivals, Apple's shipments have declined. IDC added that the company shipped 5.9 million units during the quarter, down from 6.7 million units in the same period last year.

HP (HPQ.US), Dell Technologies (DELL.US), and Asus make up the remaining three PC vendors in the top five. In the third quarter of 2026, the market shares of these three companies were 16.5%, 12.1%, and 8.7%, respectively, compared with 19.1%, 12.9%, and 7.6% for the same period in 2025. The three companies mentioned above shipped 10.3 million units, 7.6 million units, and 5.5 million units in the quarter, respectively.