PC companies facing a double hit of memory chip shortages and rising costs have shifted, partly by choice and partly by necessity, toward selling fewer units at higher prices. Judging by revenue alone, the results so far appear solid.

IDC said global PC shipments fell 4.9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier. By contrast, PC prices are forecast to rise as much as 20 percent this year. While shipments continue to decline, PC prices are expected to keep rising through 2027.

For PC makers, that means price increases must more than offset the drop in shipments to maintain revenue. The analysis is that, at this point, the rapid revenue expansion driven by higher PC prices is having a stronger effect than the revenue drag from falling shipments.

The Wall Street Journal (WAJ) reported recently that HP said its second-quarter PC unit shipments fell 16 percent from a year earlier, but revenue rose 18 percent.

Other PC makers are seeing a similar pattern. Dell's client services group posted a 20 percent rise in fiscal second-quarter revenue ended in July, and Lenovo's PC and smart devices division recorded an increase of nearly 30 percent.

Jitesh Ubrani (지테시 우브라니), a director in IDC's consumer research unit, said, "With memory prices so high and supply volumes also short, companies are reducing production of low-priced products and putting more resources into premium lineups. That is often because premium lineups are more profitable."

The WSJ said AI PCs, optimised to handle AI workloads, account for some of the PCs currently being sold.

PC makers are expecting that the AI boom among consumers, especially corporate customers, will offset demand declines in other parts of the market, the WSJ reported.

UBS analyst David Vogt (데이비드 보그트) said companies, particularly in heavily regulated industries, are increasingly choosing on-premises solutions to handle complex or sensitive AI tasks. He forecast that demand for AI PCs will remain solid for a considerable period in the corporate market, which accounts for about 75 percent of total PC market volume.