He memory Price increaseamong other components, such as SSD drives, is squeezing the profit margins, and prices, of the major laptop brands. This, added to a climate in which consumers, as well as SMEs and professionals, are going to be more careful with their expenses due to economic forecasts at different levels, makes the laptop sales forecasts increasingly worse during the year that has just begun.
Indeed, TrendForce’s latest forecasts reflect a reduction in its projection for laptop shipments to interannual decrease of 5.4% for this year 2026totaling 173 million units. This shift means brands are taking a more conservative approach to inventory management, promotions and product configurations, due to the pressures of rising costs.
If memory price increases are not significantly reduced by the second quarter of 2026, and brands are unable to pass on increased costs, wholesale demand for entry-level and consumer laptops may fall further. In this context, wholesale sales for 2026 of laptops could be even more pessimistic in the future, falling by up to 10.1% year-on-year.
The laptop market largely depends on established supply chain relationships, product offerings, channel strategies, and business demand. Brands that have stable, long-term agreements with major memory suppliers have a higher proportion of enterprise, mid- and high-end products. Also more mature price and channel management, in addition to being better equipped to deal with current memory price increases, as well as to ensure the stability of remittances.
Apple is one of them, and despite the increasing price of memory, its integrated supply chain as well as its pricing power allows it to have more flexibility to adjust its product lines. In addition, its stable and notable purchasing volumes, together with a clear product launch roadmap and predictable demand planning, facilitate secure and priority cooperation from memory suppliers.
In the case of Lenovo, the global volume laptop sales leader, it may not be able to avoid price increases. However, its benefits of scale and strong supply chain can help it limit price increases and provide more flexibility in cost management. All this will allow it to possibly grow in market share, despite market trends.
On the other hand, TrendForce points out that the increase in memory prices may reduce demand for panels in 2026, with an estimated drop in wholesale sales of laptop panels of 7.9% year-on-year. LCD panels may suffer even greater declines, due to the greater weakness in demand for laptops and the growing adoption of OLED technology.
In turn, although demand for OLED panels for laptops points to growth in 2026 as brands increase their offerings of OLED models, the increase in component costs for memory manufacturing, which can be reflected in higher prices, may reduce consumer demand for these displaysand lead to a brake on the growth of sales to wholesalers.
