The hits keep coming for PC and laptop makers as RAMaggeddon, and now the U.S.-Iran war, disrupts everything from supply chains to component costs. Apple and the MacBook Neo may be the beneficiaries, thanks to a disappearing market of budget-friendly computers.
Nikkei Asia is reporting that many of the major PC makers like Asus, HP and Lenovo are being forced to raise prices thanks to astronomical memory prices. Plus, the unwarranted U.S. attacks on Iran are actively affecting the oil industry which will cause shipping and manufacturing prices to increase as well.
“There is only so much PC companies can do to absorb the costs and we have to pass on the surging costs to consumers,” an unnamed gaming PC executive told Nikkei Asia.
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Yep, AI is the problem
I’m getting tired of saying the same thing over and over, so I’ll just cut to the chase. The demand for AI compute is getting out of hand — with DRAM demand accounting for 50% of the globe’s memory consumption in 2025.
That has left PC and smartphone makers scrambling for supply, and that demand is driving the prices up to lofty numbers. Acer’s Chairman Jason Chen has said the cost of memory and storage chips had risen “between 50 to 100%,” and companies would have to “reflect” this in their prices to us.
And over the course of this year so far, we’ve had:
- A roughly 20% increase in Asus prices
- Dell jumping by around 20-25%
- Lenovo warning that prices will start to go up this month
- HP confirming its prices will rise
- And Acer flagging price increases of 10-20%
And we’re only in March?! I’m tired, boss, and so are the companies. “I am very pessimistic about the PC industry this year,” a gaming PC company executive told Nikkei Asia. “January was my final call for friends to buy PCs this year before facing more expensive price tags.”
Ditching the budget end
Most interestingly in this report, the writers spoke to an executive at ELAN Microelectronics — a company that makes the controller chips for touchpads across laptops from brands like Lenovo and Dell. Basically, a critical part of the manufacturing process that can be the eyes and ears of what’s happening on the ground.
“We are seeing laptop builders shift to prioritize…higher-end commercial notebooks rather than entry-level products to boost revenue and make better use of the limited memory supply,” the executive commented. “Overall shipment volumes are still declining but the value per unit is increasing.”
You see, companies started stockpiling memory chips in the third quarter of last year, which has quickly started to run out.
Advantage, Apple MacBook Neo
Apple recently announced the new $599 MacBook Neo, an attempt by the Cupertino company to directly compete with budget-friendly Chromebooks and low-end Windows notebooks. Whether Apple read the tea leaves or is launching at the most opportune time, the company is going to benefit massively.
As Nikkei reports, many PC manufacturers are turning away from their cheapest offerings in favor of premium laptops and PCs to make the most of the RAM they have available. It’s a matter of survival as the companies attempt to recoup more profit from higher-priced laptops over reducing specs and memory in cheap sets.
Even Apple has been forced to raise prices on its higher-end MacBooks. The just-announced MacBook Pro M5 Pro starts at $200 more than the previous generation. Additionally, Apple just discontinued the six-month-old 512GB MacBook Pro M5 in favor of a starting model with 1TB of storage.
It’s so dire that one PC maker declined to even make an estimate for 2026 due to the memory shortage and rising prices.
Meanwhile, Apple locked the Neo to 8GB of RAM and 256 or 512GB storage. These aren’t spectacular numbers, but they are more than adequate for the target audience.
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