At the same time, considering the continuous rise in DRAM and SSD costs, brand owners are more inclined to stock up in advance and lock in components, driving better than expected shipment performance in the first half of the year.

However, the trend of rising memory prices has not slowed down, and coupled with the synchronous increase in CPU prices, the cost pressure faced by the brand side is further expanding.

TrendForce pointed out that in the second half of 2026, with the continuous improvement of CPU shortage, the momentum of brand early stocking will not decrease, coupled with factors such as early replacement of end users and stable business demand, the downward adjustment of notebook shipments for the whole year is expected to converge to 9.4%.

To quantify the impact of component price increases on cost structure, TrendForce uses a mainstream model with a suggested retail price (MSRP) of $900 in the first quarter of 2025 (a period of relatively stable memory supply) as a benchmark. At that time, core components such as CPU, DRAM, and SSD accounted for approximately 45% of the BOM cost.

After more than a year of price increases, by the third quarter of 2026, the proportion of these three items has risen to 68%, indicating that memory and CPU are rapidly reshaping the cost structure of laptops.

From the perspective of brand gross profit, due to the quarterly increase in CPU, DRAM, and SSD prices, it is expected that by the third quarter of 2026, brands will need to increase product prices by 80% compared to the first quarter of 2025 in order to maintain the same gross profit level.

This means that the impact of component price increases on terminal prices has evolved from a simple cost burden to a direct pressure that drives significant price increases.