Why your next laptop is going to cost more - and it has nothing to do with the laptop itself

If you've priced a new computer for your business recently and been surprised by the number, you're not imagining it. Prices are genuinely going up, and the reason has almost nothing to do with laptops themselves.

What actually happened

The world is short on memory chips. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron - the three companies that make over 95% of the world's memory chips - have been shifting their factories toward producing high-bandwidth memory for AI systems, the kind used in the massive computers that train AI models. That's left far less supply for the ordinary memory that goes into everyday laptops and desktops.

The result: memory chip prices have surged dramatically over the past year, and industry analysts now expect global PC shipments to fall by roughly 11% this year, the steepest drop in over a decade. HP has reported that memory now makes up around 35% of a laptop's total material cost, up from under 20% just a few months earlier. Analysts expect PC prices to keep climbing into 2027, with little relief likely before then - and the cheapest entry-level laptops may disappear from the market entirely by 2028, as manufacturers can no longer make them profitably at low prices.

What this means for you

If new computers, POS terminals, or other hardware are anywhere on your business's plans for this year, price them now rather than later - waiting is likely to cost more, not less. A few practical moves worth considering: buying earlier rather than closer to when you actually need the hardware, checking refurbished or certified pre-owned options (which are seeing renewed demand for exactly this reason), and holding onto existing equipment a little longer than you might have planned to, since replacement costs have shifted the math on when an upgrade is actually worth it.

For businesses in Nigeria specifically, remember that a global dollar-price increase compounds once shipping, customs, and exchange rate costs are added on top - so the Naira impact tends to be larger than the headline percentage suggests.