US PC shipments (excluding tablets) rose 3% year-on-year in the December quarter of 2025 to 18.2 million units, ending two consecutive quarters of decline, according to new research from Omdia.
Omdia attributed the return to growth to a convergence of late-stage Windows 11 commercial refresh cycles, holiday demand, and vendor efforts to secure inventory ahead of expected memory and storage constraints in 2026. Full-year 2025 shipments reached 71.5 million units, up 3% from 2024.
Despite the late-2025 lift, Omdia forecasts US PC shipments will fall 13% year-on-year in 2026 to about 61.9 million units, before a modest recovery in 2027. The firm said constrained supply of memory and storage components is expected to be a key factor.
“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 said education remained a weak segment, falling 11% in Q4, although he noted this was an improvement on declines in earlier quarters. He added that government shipments rose 1%.
Omdia said memory and storage costs rose 40–70% from the start of 2025 and it expects a further increase in mainstream PC memory and storage costs in Q1 2026. The firm said the tight supply environment is expected to have the greatest impact on sub-US$500 devices, which include many education and entry-level consumer systems, and warned smaller PC vendors could be disproportionately affected.
In Q4 2025, HP led the US market with 4.56 million units and a 25% share, while Dell shipped 4.48 million units for a 24.6% share. Lenovo placed third with 2.96 million units (16.3%), followed by Apple (15.7%) and Acer (5.6%).
Omdia also highlighted vendor dynamics, noting that Dell’s Q4 results reflected growth in commercial shipments, while Apple increased its business market share over full-year 2025, reaching 11%.
