TrendForce initially forecasted a 1.7% year-over-year (YoY) growth in notebook/laptop shipments for 2026, which has now been downgraded to a 2.6% YoY decline following reports that big players like Samsung, LG , Dell, HP, and Lenovo are all reconsidering their roadmaps for next year. Everyone is affected by AI, eating up production lines.
Just two days ago, Micron killed off its nearly 30-year-old consumer brand, Crucial, to focus on fulfilling AI demand, since margins with those clients are significantly higher. "There is an unprecedented cost increase widely in the industry, especially on memory and SSD. The cost increase itself is more dramatic than usual – more than any player can mitigate," warned Marco Andresen, an executive at Lenovo, told The Register . That report further reiterates that Dell and Lenovo, as well as HP and HPE, are planning price increases of 15 percent for servers and 5 percent for PCs.
Lenovo is reportedly recommending placing orders as soon as possible to avoid the next surge that's due in a couple of weeks. The company says that global supply strains were already suppressing DRAM production, but the advent of Big Tech chasing AI with seemingly unlimited funding only exacerbates the situation, causing the retail segment to suffer the most. And to think we're still in the beginning, folks.
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Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/dell-and-lenovo-set-to-increase-server-and-pc-costs-by-as-much-as-15-percent-as-soon-as-this-month-according-to-industry-sources-dram-and-ai-demand-create-tight-market-for-businesses-and-consumers#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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