Acer Expects PC Prices to Rise 5–20% in Q4 2026

Acer chairman and CEO Jason Chen expects PC prices to keep rising in the fourth quarter of 2026 even though broad shortages of memory and processors are easing. Speaking after Acer’s Wangdao Management and AI International Forum on September 19, Chen said individual PC models could rise by roughly 5% to 20%, depending in part on how much memory and SSD capacity they contain.

The important distinction is between availability and cost. Chen described DDR4 and mainstream DDR5 supply as relatively plentiful and CPU supply as broadly normal, while memory and SSD pricing remains elevated and volatile. A component can therefore stop being physically scarce before the higher acquisition costs already moving through the supply chain disappear from finished-PC pricing.

PC vendors do not price every machine from the spot cost of components on the day it reaches a store. Inventory bought at higher prices, contracts, product mix and the delay between component procurement and retail shipment can keep average system prices elevated after availability improves. Chen said Acer has been increasing inventories of lower-priced components as it manages the unusually volatile market.

That also explains why the 5% to 20% range should not be read as a universal markup on every Acer PC. Chen tied the size of the increase to individual configurations, noting that systems carrying more memory or SSD capacity can face greater cost pressure. The statement is a company-level outlook, not a published price list for specific models or regions.

Chen expects PC average selling prices to reach a high point around the middle of 2027, with the possibility of prices beginning to ease in the second half of the year as additional semiconductor capacity comes online. He specifically pointed to expanding supply from Chinese manufacturers as one reason he does not expect the current memory shortage narrative to persist indefinitely.

That is an Acer executive forecast rather than a guaranteed market timetable. Memory markets can change quickly as suppliers alter wafer allocation, demand shifts between AI infrastructure and conventional electronics, and new capacity ramps at different yields. Still, the comments are useful because they come from a major PC manufacturer describing what it is currently seeing in procurement: broad availability is improving, but the cost shock has not yet worked its way out of finished systems.

If Acer’s outlook holds, the near-term effect should be uneven rather than a single market-wide percentage. Memory-heavy laptops, workstations and other systems with larger SSD configurations have more exposure to elevated component costs than low-capacity models. At the same time, Chen’s comments suggest buyers should not confuse high pricing with a universal inability to source DDR4, mainstream DDR5 or CPUs.

The broader signal is that the PC supply chain may be moving from a shortage phase into a high-price, high-volatility phase. That can look contradictory at retail: components become easier for manufacturers to obtain while finished PCs still get more expensive because earlier cost increases arrive later in the product pipeline.