China's online laptop market suffered its worst start in a decade during the first quarter of 2026. Sales fell to 2.3 million units, a decline of 19.2 percent compared to the same period last year.
Supply chain costs drive price surge
The average selling price of a laptop rose to 6431 CNY (about $944). This marks several consecutive quarters of year-over-year price increases. Supply chain issues are driving up costs. Demand for AI servers has pushed memory and SSD prices higher. Intel has also raised CPU prices, and production capacity for low-end chips has been cut. As a result, mainstream laptop prices have increased by roughly 20 percent.
AI laptops now account for nearly half of all sales, with an average price of 7718 CNY (about $1,133). The high-end segment, defined as models priced above 10000 yuan, saw its share grow to 8.5 percent.
The data comes from a market research report by Luotu Technology. The report highlights the impact of rising component costs on consumer pricing and the growing role of AI features in the laptop market.
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