India, July 9 -- After nine quarters of growth, or at least maintaining stability, global PC shipments have witnessed a significant negative trend in Q2 2026. Research firm International Data Corporation (IDC)'s latest PC shipments data indicates a 4.9% decline, with Apple being the only computing device maker to gain market share. IDC pegs the decline to memory chip shortage, due to a combination of factors including the West Asia conflict and investments in AI data centres hoovering up hardware inventory.

In Q2 2026, 68.2 million computing devices were shipped worldwide, down from 71.7 million shipments in the same quarter last year. While a decline was predicted, this severity in terms of percentages wasn't expected. The outlook for c...