From PC World: Desktop PC CPU shipments plunged more than expected during the first quarter of 2026, and darker clouds loom on the horizon.
In total, the total number of X86 processors sold into the PC market — mobile, PC, server, IoT — only fell about 6 percent from a year ago, a report issued Wednesday by Mercury Research found. However, Mercury noted that fourth-quarter sales had already weakened, and that the decrease simply added on to that. Desktop processor shipments declined at worse than typical rates, falling nearly 20 percent from a year ago, Mercury said.
That’s not particularly unusual, and yet it is.
As Mercury analyst Dean McCarron noted in an email, the CPU market typically declines between 15 to 20 percent in the first quarter, simply because fourth-quarter holiday sales represent the peak shopping period. However, McCarron said that AMD’s desktop CPU shipments during the first quarter were “unusually weak,” and “that’s probably due [to] people buying ahead of price increases, e.g. getting while the getting is good.”
In terms of significance, the change in buying behavior for AMD processors had a less meaningful impact than the seasonal drop, McCarron said. A small but growing factor, however, was the demand destruction as consumers held off buying desktop PCs because of component prices.
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