Have you ever gone to replace your laptop, only to be troubled by the rising prices of Windows machines? Many manufacturers are grappling with rising costs and are being forced to push up product prices. Apple's MacBook, meanwhile, continues to grow in defiance of the market's headwinds. Even as the overall market shrinks by 8% and HP faces an 11% decline, Apple is projected to grow by 21.7%. This gap lies in how each company counters rising memory costs.
The Notebook PC Market Stalls, Shrinking to 181.1 Million Units
According to Sigmaintel's 2026 shipment forecast, the overall notebook PC market will contract to approximately 181.1 million units. This represents a roughly 8% decline year-over-year. Cost increases stemming from US-China tariff issues have introduced uncertainty into the market, becoming a factor that has halted growth for many major vendors.
HP is expected to see shipments decline by about 11%. In early 2025, MacBook shipments temporarily surged due to rush demand aimed at avoiding tariffs, but the mid-to-long-term trend is on a downward trajectory. Market contraction combined with political risk is squeezing the management of PC makers.
Apple's Forecast: 21.7% Growth Overtakes Dell
Apple is projected to ship 28 million notebooks in 2026, a high growth rate of 21.7% year-over-year. This figure would put Apple ahead of Dell's projected shipment volume of 22.5 million units, placing Apple in the world's No. 3 position.
Mac shipments in Q1 2026 also recorded a 9% to 11% increase according to analyst aggregates. In particular, the MacBook Air equipped with the M4 chip is powerfully driving this growth, following on from a 17% increase in Q1 2025. Apple stands as the only OEM continuing to post meaningful growth while the rest of the industry sinks.
Comparing 2026 Shipment Forecasts Among Major Vendors
Summarizing the ranking shifts among top vendors reveals a clear structural change. Lenovo maintains its No. 1 position with a forecast of 43 million units, while No. 2 HP has turned to declining volumes. Apple is growing rapidly, surpassing Dell to rise to No. 3.
| Manufacturer | 2026 Projected Shipments | Market Position | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lenovo | 43 million units | No. 1 | Maintained |
| HP | Undisclosed (approx. 11% decline YoY) | No. 2 | Declining |
| Apple | 28 million units | No. 3 (projected) | +21.7% |
| Dell | 22.5 million units | No. 4 (projected) | Declining |
The gap between Apple and Dell widens to approximately 5.5 million units based on projected figures. For a company to post growth exceeding 20% while the overall market shifts into negative growth is extraordinary, to say the least.
The Unified Memory Design That Neutralizes Rising DRAM Costs
Most Windows PCs have a structure in which the CPU and memory (DRAM) are arranged as separate chips on the motherboard. When DRAM market prices surge, this directly translates into higher component costs, which are then passed on to the retail price. This is the primary reason behind the current price increases in Windows machines.
Apple Silicon employs a "Unified Memory Architecture (UMA)" that integrates the CPU, GPU, and memory into a single package. Memory is placed directly on the SoC (System on a Chip) die, and a shared memory pool is used by all processors in common.
With this structure, there's no need to route data through an external bus for transfer. In the case of the M4 chip, memory bandwidth reaches up to 120GB/s, and the CPU and GPU can directly access the same memory space. Compared to the conventional approach of procuring and installing large quantities of individual DRAM modules, this design fundamentally cuts down on component procurement costs.
Apple was able to fully realize this design thanks to its vertical integration strategy dating back to the M1 chip. By controlling everything from chip design to the OS in-house, the company achieved memory allocation optimization at the software level. Windows vendors, on the other hand—such as AMD with its Strix Point—are working to improve memory bandwidth, but have yet to break free from a structure that remains dependent on the price fluctuations of general-purpose DRAM modules.
Even as DRAM costs surge in 2026, Apple is in a position to keep MacBook prices steady or even lower them. Windows PC makers, by contrast, have no choice but to pass costs on to consumers, and this is manifesting itself as a gap in shipment volumes. The 2026 notebook PC market will likely be remembered as the year in which memory design choices became the deciding factor in competitiveness.