Fast Technology News, November 11: The third quarter is traditionally the peak sales season for the notebook market, especially during the back-to-school period, when student demand typically drives a surge in purchases. This year, however, has been different—the notebook market not only failed to see a peak season but continued to decline in sales.

According to the latest report from RUNTO, in Q3 2026, China's online all-channel notebook sales totaled 3.12 million units, down 14.0% year-on-year, with sales revenue reaching 24.1 billion yuan, a decline of 2.6% year-on-year.

More notably, this marks the fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year decline in the notebook market since Q4 2025.

2026Q3 China Notebook Online Market Quarterly Sales and Changes

Why are consumers increasingly reluctant to buy notebooks? A key reason is the rising cost of hardware.

Since the beginning of this year, prices for core components such as DRAM memory, SSDs, and CPUs have continued to climb, and these costs have ultimately been passed on to complete-machine manufacturers. To maintain profits, many notebook products have had to raise their prices.

For consumers, the same budget may no longer buy a product with last year's specifications.

This is especially true for ordinary users, who buy notebooks mainly for office work, study, and entertainment. If the device is only for daily use, older computers can still get the job done, so there is naturally little motivation to upgrade to price-increased new products.

Changes in subsidy policies have also had an impact. In 2025, national subsidies released a great deal of upgrade demand in advance, while in 2026 the subsidy intensity declined, with the discount ratio dropping to 15% and quotas also imposed. Consumers can enjoy fewer discounts, and their willingness to buy has been affected accordingly.

AI PCs, previously highly anticipated, also failed to reverse the market trend. Although AI functions continue to increase, affected by factors such as the software ecosystem and hardware costs, current incremental growth is mainly concentrated in high-end products and has not yet driven growth across the entire notebook market.

2026Q3 China Notebook Online Market Brand Sales Share

In terms of brand competition, Lenovo remains the biggest winner.

In Q3 2026, the top five domestic online notebook sales brands were Lenovo, ASUS, MECHREVO, Apple, and HP, with their combined market share reaching 79.2%.

Among them, Lenovo continued to rank first with a 35.9% share, maintaining its position in the commercial thin-and-light notebook and consumer all-round notebook markets through a product lineup covering different price ranges.

MECHREVO ranked third with an 11.8% share, up 0.8 percentage points year-on-year, mainly relying on high-cost-performance gaming notebooks and thin-and-light notebooks to gain greater consumer recognition.

The most eye-catching brand this quarter was Apple. Apple's online sales share reached 10.6%, surging 4.7 percentage points year-on-year—the most obvious growth among leading brands. New MacBook series products were well received, attracting many mid-range price users.

By contrast, ASUS and HP came under pressure, with market shares falling 2.1 and 2.0 percentage points respectively to 14.8% and 6.2%.

Judging from this report card, the biggest challenges facing the notebook market remain rising prices and insufficient upgrade demand. For consumers, computers are getting more expensive, but performance and experience upgrades may not bring sufficiently obvious perceived benefits.

If the costs of core hardware such as memory and SSDs remain high, the notebook market may still need to wait some time before it can quickly resume growth.