Memory and storage made up 42% of the parts cost of a mainstream PC in the third quarter of 2026, up from 16% in the first quarter of 2025, according to figures from the research firm Omdia. Omdia defines a mainstream PC as one that sold for $699 in the first quarter of 2025.
Over the same period the total parts bill rose from $435 to $699. Memory and storage went from about $70 to about $294, so they account for about $224 of the $264 increase, or about 85%, by our arithmetic.
Short explainer · Memory drove 85% of a PC’s cost rise
A vertical news Short summarising this story. Figures come from Omdia’s 9 October release; our arithmetic is labelled.
Business Pill · THE MEMORY WALL
A short explainer on the memory wall, why memory capacity and bandwidth limit computing. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about Omdia’s data.
The key insight: As we read Omdia’s chart, memory and storage went from about half the processor’s cost in a mainstream PC to about twice it in six quarters, and they account for about 85% of the rise in the parts bill, by our arithmetic.
Omdia’s 9 October release carries a chart titled “PC material costs increased by over 40% for all price points while memory and storage cost share reaches almost 40%”. For the mainstream tier it gives a bill of materials of $435 in the first quarter of 2025, $665 in the second quarter of 2026 and $699 in the third.
Memory went from 5% to 16% to 20% of that bill. Storage went from 11% to 23% to 22%. The processor fell from 30% to 22% to 21%, and the display from 8% to 5% to 4%.
“The cost share of DRAM and SSDs in PCs has risen sharply from a typical level of around 15% to nearly 40%, with price increases more than fourfold”, said Ben Yeh, principal analyst at Omdia. He added that PC vendors have raised prices several times but “these increases have yet to fully offset the impact”.
The same chart circulated again on 30 October, redrawn by Nikkei Asia from Omdia’s data and shared by The Daily Shot.
Parts cost of a mainstream PC ($699 retail in the first quarter of 2025) by component, in dollars, from Omdia’s 9 October 2026 shares and bill-of-materials totals. Dollar splits are FourWeekMBA arithmetic from rounded shares, so approximate.
What Was Posted on X
Memory and storage prices are soaring and taking up a growing share of PC costs…. driving up the recreational goods & vehicles core PCE component @soberlook @fundstrat Nikkei Asia
— Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT ๐ (@mikezaccardi) Oct 30 20:46
Mike Zaccardi, a market strategist, shared the Nikkei Asia chart of Omdia’s PC cost data on 30 October and wrote that memory and storage prices are pushing up a consumer-goods component of core PCE. This piece uses Omdia’s own release for the figures; we did not verify the PCE component claim.
The Dollars Behind the Shares
Multiplying Omdia’s rounded shares by its bill-of-materials totals gives approximate dollar figures, by our arithmetic. Memory and storage rose from about $70 to about $294, about 4.2 times. The processor rose from about $131 to about $147, about 12%.
In the first quarter of 2025 memory and storage cost about half as much as the processor. In the third quarter of 2026 they cost about twice as much, by our arithmetic.
The entry tier, PCs under $500 in the first quarter of 2025, shows the same pattern. Its bill rose from $275 to $471, and memory and storage went from 16% to 36% of it, about $44 to about $170, by our arithmetic.
“The impact of upstream component cost increases has now fully worked its way through to end-market pricing”, said Ishan Dutt, research director at Omdia.
The Price Data
The Bureau of Economic Analysis’s September report shows the PCE price index up 0.5% from August and 3.6% from a year earlier. Excluding food and energy, it rose 0.3% in the month and 3.1% over the year.
Mike Zaccardi, a market strategist, wrote on X that memory and storage prices are “driving up the recreational goods & vehicles core PCE component”. The headline release does not break out that component, and we did not check it in the detailed tables.
As we read the chart, the processor’s dollar cost barely moved while memory and storage roughly quadrupled, so the parts bill rose because of two inputs.
As we read Omdia’s release, PC makers have raised prices several times without covering the cost, and shipments fell 21.2% in the third quarter.
As we read the BEA release, the PCE price index rose 0.5% in September; Mike Zaccardi links part of the goods inflation to memory and storage, which we did not check in the component tables.
Ben Yeh, principal analyst, Omdia, 9 October 2026
“The cost share of DRAM and SSDs in PCs has risen sharply from a typical level of around 15% to nearly 40%, with price increases more than fourfold”
Three Implications
FOR PC MAKERS Omdia says vendors have raised prices multiple times and these increases have yet to fully offset the impact.
FOR BUYERS Omdia’s mainstream tier was defined as a $699 PC in the first quarter of 2025; its parts bill alone reached $699 in the third quarter of 2026.
FOR MEMORY MAKERS Memory and storage were about $294 of that $699 bill in the third quarter, by our arithmetic from Omdia’s shares.
The framework says “Memory is becoming the new compute. HBM growth is outpacing accelerator demand, making memory the rate-limiting factor in the AI scaling equation.”
As we read it, the same constraint now shows up on the consumer side: in Omdia’s mainstream PC, memory and storage cost about twice the processor. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss Omdia’s data.
Omdia’s shares are rounded, so the dollar figures here are approximate. The chart describes Omdia’s reference configurations, not any one company’s bill of materials. We did not verify Mr Zaccardi’s reading of the PCE component.
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Omdia’s figures put memory and storage at 42% of a mainstream PC’s parts cost, up from 16%, and about $224 of a $264 rise in the parts bill, about 85%, by our arithmetic, while shipments fell 21.2% in the third quarter.
A note on sourcing. Figures come from Omdia’s 9 October 2026 release and chart, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s September release and a post on X by Mike Zaccardi, read on 31 October 2026. Dollar splits are our arithmetic from Omdia’s rounded shares. We did not contact Omdia.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
