Laptop pricing predictability just broke. After year of flat to declining prices, clients are seeing increases in laptop prices of 10%-15% or more This is bad news for CIOs managing this year’s laptop refresh cycle.
There are two primary drivers of these cost increases. First Windows 10 end of life has caused many enterprises to accelerate their refresh programs. Second, OEMs are experiencing shortages in chips for consumer devices due to the AI boom. In some cases, chip makers like Micron are moving away from consumer devices to take advantage of the surge in data center demand. At the same time, demand for AI-capable consumer devices is surging. For example, AI PC adoption in China is expected to reach 85% in 2027. In fact, one OEM called the chip shortage the most unprecedented mismatch in supply and demand they’d ever seen in the memory industry. And with chip supply not set to change materially until 2027 at the earliest, expect prices to continue to climb for at least the next 2-3 years.
What can tech execs do to reclaim control over laptop refresh costs?
As laptop prices continue to rise, tech executives must explore creative strategies to regain control over refresh costs. The approaches below provide opportunities to reduce spend, extend asset value, and align investments with business needs.
Adopt “Laptop Rationalization”: Device refresh cycles are often governed by legacy, time-based standards that do not reflect actual performance, role needs, or business impact. Reevaluating your strategy for device refresh cycles provides an opportunity to optimize spend, extend asset value (26% of companies are getting 4+ years out of laptops), and align investments more directly to productivity and business outcomes. Options include (a) align refresh cycles to performance data, (b) tailor laptop needs to employee personas and use cases, (c) consider redeployment models, and (d) rationalize software. Evaluating these approaches based on experience impacts, business risk, security posture, and change management complexity will help identify the best mix to incorporate to meet your specific needs.
Partner with Finance to review your capitalization policy: while one-off or low-volume laptop purchases are typically 100% expensed in the calendar year of purchase, if your enterprise buys a material number of laptops each year, you may be able to justify capitalizing this and future years’ laptops and spreading the cost over the useful life (generally 3-5 years). This would not impact cash out the door, but it could lighten the reported expense for laptops in an environment where prices are escalating. Just remember that capitalization is a multi-year approach. So if you decide to go back to expensing laptops in future years, you’ll have a temporary blip in expenses as the lump sum refresh expenses overlap with prior years’ capitalization.
Consolidate vendors: Prices are rising for most major laptop vendors, with some holding into prices at least temporarily as they exhaust current supply. So moving from one vendor to another is unlikely to result in material savings. However, for enterprises that buy laptops from multiple vendors, this is the time to consolidate and use that scale to negotiate the best price possible from fewer vendors.
Consider alternative purchasing structures: If price is your primary consideration, look at other options that can either spread the impact of cost increases out over multiple years, or reduce/eliminate the lump sum cost per user for laptops. For example, leasing is another way of shifting laptop costs from a lump sum to being spread over time. As opposed to buying and capitalizing laptops, leasing also results in lower cash spend in the year of acquisition, although it can potentially lead to greater cash spend over time.
Migrate to alternative deployment methods: Alternatives to high-performance laptops procured by the enterprise such as BYOD and Desktop-as-a-Service/VDI are also options to reduce laptop spend per user. In fact, just under 40% of companies were planning to implement or had already implemented BYOD in 2025, and about half of companies have adopted DaaS/VDI in some form. BYOD is a good option for lower-risk personas, while DaaS/VDI can avoid the need for more expensive laptops for more compute-heavy personas.
Build Your 2026 Refresh Strategy with Confidence
You’re not alone – every CIO is confronting this spike in pricing, while also navigating decisions around next generation hardware like AI PCs. If you want to talk more about how to absorb or outmaneuver the impact, reach out to either of us: Christy Punch or Greg Zorella. Or, if you’re a Forrester client, book a guidance session.
