PC Sales Underwhelm in US Despite Windows 10's Imminent Demise
PC shipments within the US only grew by 1% year over year, despite the impending end of support for Windows 10 , which was expected to drive millions of users to upgrade. The IDC report for PC shipments to America says such sales were flat for the third quarter, and many reasons are given for this unexpected lack of growth.
Global markets have seen massive turbulence in 2025, especially in the tech space, where tariffs have impacted the shipments of high-tech AI hardware, consumer systems, CPUs, and GPUs. This was given as one reason US PC shipments have stalled, with the IDC report also highlighting that a surge of purchases and shipments earlier in the year to avoid later tariffs could contribute to fewer sales in the latter half of the year so far.
"We're also thinking that with macroeconomic uncertainties, a portion of the commercial segment is delaying its Windows 11 transition to 2026," IDC's Bouchard told our colleagues at PCMag .
Credit: IDC
The economic factors at play here seem to be a specifically US trend. Elsewhere in the world, IDC reports that PC sales are much stronger, with Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Pacific Asia each reporting a 14% year-on-year increase in PC shipments. Globally, the market will grow by some 9%, despite the US's flatlined growth dragging down the average.
Much of this growth is said to come from Japan, where an influx of new shipments supporting Windows 11 has been purchased ahead of the Oct. 14 end-of-support date. However, this hasn't generated the same level of interest in the US.
Tens of millions of PCs cannot be upgraded and will fall outside the Microsoft support umbrella in less than a week. Although Microsoft does offer paid extended support (except in the European Economic Area, where updates are free for another year ), it's unlikely the majority will take advantage of that offer, leaving a vast swath of computers vulnerable to any zero-day exploits hackers and malware authors have been saving up.
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