{"id":1857071,"date":"2026-03-31T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1857071"},"modified":"2026-03-31T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:00:00","slug":"the-ram-crisis-is-apples-best-chance-in-decades-to-capture-the-pc-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1857071","title":{"rendered":"The RAM crisis is Apple&#8217;s best chance in decades to capture the PC market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/d0eg2efx9yRWk9oRYfbDDw&#8211;\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD03MjE-\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/user-uploaded\/img_2787.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article id=\"article-ec80ddc0-48e4-4980-98f6-d70c8495f566\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"mx-auto flex flex-row justify-between md:px-10 md:max-w-[1220px]\">\n<div class=\"min-w-0 flex-1 self-start\" data-i13n-boundary=\"true\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<nav class=\"relative mx-4 mb-4 border-b pb-4 md:mx-0 md:mb-6 md:max-w-[750px] md:pb-6\" aria-label=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<ol class=\"no-scrollbar overflow-scroll whitespace-nowrap text-battleship\">\n<li class=\"inline\">\n<li class=\"inline-block cursor-default last:pr-10 md:last:pr-20 font-bold\">Computing<\/li>\n<li class=\"inline-block cursor-default last:pr-10 md:last:pr-20 ml-2 before:mb-0.5 before:mr-3 before:inline-block before:size-2 before:rotate-45 before:border-r-2 before:border-t-2 before:border-battleship\">Laptops<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/nav>\n<header class=\"mb-4 px-4 md:mb-6 md:max-w-[750px] md:px-0\">\n<h1 class=\"layout-h1 my-2 font-bold leading-tight\">The RAM crisis is Apple&#8217;s best chance in decades to capture the PC market<\/h1>\n<h2 class=\"rightrail-h2-subheadline my-2 text-[18px] font-light leading-5 md:text-[20px]\/[28px]\">Ahead of its 50th anniversary, no company is better positioned to take advantage of memory shortages.<\/h2>\n<div class=\"flex-col items-start lg:flex lg:flex-row lg:items-center lg:justify-between mt-6\">\n<div class=\"relative md:mr-[10px]\">\n<div class=\"flex items-center\">\n<div class=\"flex mr-2\">\n<div class=\"shrink-0 cursor-pointer inline-block size-[42px]\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt role=\"img\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full rounded-full object-cover object-center shadow-[0_0_0_2px_#ffffff]\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/Pd6vmkhC1uW1FFTjwp9Yrw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTgwO2g9ODA-\/https:\/\/o.aolcdn.com\/images\/dims?image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fs.yimg.com%2Fos%2Fcreatr-uploaded-images%2F2023-09%2F210e82a0-5e14-11ee-93bd-e80525011260&amp;compress=1&amp;progressive=1&amp;quality=75&amp;client=hawkeye&amp;signature=2af279b2cbc8a93bc6d3b69a3ee0e9743c8ea3e5\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"inline-block\">\n<div class=\"w-max text-[0.875rem]\/[1.25rem] font-semibold flex items-center\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col\">\n<div class=\"flex w-max items-center\">Igor Bonifacic<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"font-normal sm:before:inline-block\">Senior reporter<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-[0.75rem] text-dolphin dark:text-shark md:text-[0.875rem]\/[1.25rem] lg:pt-[5px]\">\n<div class=\"inline-block\"><time datetime=\"2026-03-31T13:00:00.000Z\">Tue, March 31, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ml-0 mt-4 flex items-center lg:ml-3 lg:mt-0\">\n<div class=\"ml-0 mr-2\">\n<div class=\"relative flex\">Add Engadget on Google<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"mx-4 md:mx-0\">\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-[[fullbleed-start_body-start]_minmax(auto,750px)_[body-end_fullbleed-end]]\">\n<figure class=\"relative col-body mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative overflow-hidden fig-image-round \"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"object-cover object-center\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/.OZFXFFm2LsinzQbJWorRg--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyNDI7aD03NDY-\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/uu\/api\/res\/1.2\/vre83cyHUMiG77URFtZMGw--~B\/aD0xNTAyO3c9MjUwMDthcHBpZD15dGFjaHlvbg--\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/user-uploaded\/img_2787.jpg\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-[0.875rem]\/[1.25rem] figure-caption mt-1 line-clamp-2 mt-2.5 md:mt-2 pr-2.5\">\n<div><span class=\"[&amp;_p]:inline\">Apple MacBook Neo Touch ID<\/span><span> (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:max-w-[750px] md:grid-cols-article\" data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">In the current RAM crisis, no company is better positioned to not only weather the storm but turn it to its advantage like Apple. It proved that when it released the MacBook Neo in early March. Despite only including 8GB of RAM, the Neo doesn&#8217;t feel compromised, a testament to the company&#8217;s silicon and software engineering. For Apple, it may be tempting to treat its latest MacBook as a one-off. That would be a mistake, because at this moment, the business decisions that made the Neo possible represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to become a bigger player in the PC market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">If you read Engadget, there&#8217;s a good chance you know the contours of the global memory shortage, but it&#8217;s worth repeating just how bad things have become in recent months. Just three companies \u2014 SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron \u2014 produce more than 90 percent of the world&#8217;s memory chips. At the end of last year, Micron announced it would end its consumer-facing business to focus on providing RAM and other components to AI customers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Citing data from TrendForce, <em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported in January that data centers would consume 70 percent of the high-end memory produced in 2026. As the Big Three shift more of their production to meet enterprise demand, they&#8217;re allocating fewer wafers for consumer products, leading to dramatic price increases in that market segment. According to data from Counterpoint Research, the price of memory \u2014 including consumer RAM kits and SSDs, as well as LPDDR5X memory for smartphones \u2014 increased by 50 percent during the final quarter of 2025. Before the end of the current quarter, the firm predicts prices will increase by another 40 to 50 percent, and the CEO of SK Hynix recently warned shortages could last until 2030.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_14gb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Since nearly all consumer electronics need some amount of RAM and storage, the trickle-down effects have come fast and hard. In December, before the situation got as bad as it is now, TrendForce warned that most of the major PC manufacturers were either considering, if not already planning, price hikes. This month, the firm warned laptop prices could increase by as much as 40 percent if manufacturers and retailers moved to protect their margins. Such a scenario would send the cost of a $900 model to about $1,260.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Amid all that, Apple added another point of pressure: the $600 MacBook Neo. During a recent investor call, Nick Wu, the chief financial officer of ASUS, described the Neo as &#8220;a shock to the entire market,&#8221; adding &#8220;all PC vendors, including upstream vendors like Microsoft, Intel and AMD&#8221; are taking the cute device &#8220;very seriously.&#8221; Wu warned ASUS would &#8220;need more time&#8221; before it could ready a response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">For ASUS and other Windows manufacturers, any response realistically may take a\u00a0year or more to formulate. That&#8217;s because the Neo represents both a technical and logistical hurdle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">To start, it&#8217;s a fundamentally different machine from the one most Windows OEMs are making right now. It has the advantage of using &#8220;unified memory&#8221; instead of a set of traditional RAM modules. The 8GB of RAM the Neo has is shared between the A18 Pro&#8217;s CPU and GPU, meaning it can more efficiently use the RAM that it does have. That&#8217;s part of the reason the Neo doesn&#8217;t feel like a Windows PC with 8GB of RAM. Apple didn&#8217;t get to the A18 Pro and the MacBook Neo by accident. It has spent more than a decade designing its own chips.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_19gb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Since 2024, Microsoft has mandated 16GB of RAM \u2014 and 256GB of solid-state storage \u2014 for PCs that are part of its Copilot+ AI program. That branding effort may not have amounted to much, with Copilot+ AI PCs accounting for just 1.9 percent of all computers sold in the first quarter of 2025, but it did push OEMs, including ASUS, Dell and others to make more capable machines. It also saw Microsoft rework Windows to better support ARM-based processors from Qualcomm. Still, it&#8217;s hard to see how Windows manufacturers can challenge Apple by going back to existing or older x86 chips with with less RAM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Qualcomm&#8217;s Snapdragon X2 processors could offer a potential response, but there are question marks there too. At CES 2026, the company announced the Snapdragon X2 Plus, a pared down version of its X2 Elite chipset with a six-core CPU. On paper, it should offer similar performance to the A18 Pro, but it doesn&#8217;t seem Qualcomm has produced the chip at scale or that Windows OEMs have shown much interest in it. As of the writing of this story, the company&#8217;s website lists just four X2 Plus-equipped models. I was only able to find one of those in stock, the $1,050 HP Omnibook 5. It has an OLED screen and more RAM than the Neo. Could HP repurpose something like the Omnibook 5 to take on the Neo? Maybe, but I&#8217;m not sure there&#8217;s getting around the need for 16GB to get Windows 11 running decently.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Even if the Snapdragon X2 Plus offers a stopgap measure, no company operates a supply chain quite like Apple. It has spent billions of dollars to make itself independent of companies like Qualcomm by designing its own Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, for example. It also doesn&#8217;t need to pay Microsoft a licensing fee to use a bloated Windows 11. Those are all factors that lead to OEMs like ASUS and Lenovo operating on razor thin margins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Per Statista, Apple earned a nearly 36.8 percent gross profit margin on its products in 2025. That&#8217;s almost exactly half as much as the gross margin it made on services, which grew to a record 75.4 percent last year. For comparison, ASUS has seen its profit margins erode to about 15.3 percent in recent quarters, or less than a third of Apple&#8217;s 2025 average of 46.9 percent. For ASUS and other Windows OEMs, the short-term outlook isn\u2019t good. HP recently told investors RAM now accounts for more than a third of the cost of its PCs. And if memory shortages continue, many of them will be forced to raise their prices to protect their margins.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_1egb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Apple is in no such position. The iPhone recently had its best quarter ever, contributing $85.27 billion to the company&#8217;s Q1 revenue. The fact that Mac revenue declined from $8.9 billion to $8.3 billion year-over-year didn&#8217;t make a dent to Apple&#8217;s bottom line. For the companies that must now compete against the Neo, it&#8217;s not a fair playing field. To Lenovo, Dell, HP and ASUS, PC sales are almost everything to their business. For Apple, it&#8217;s a side hustle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">As the company prepares to kick off its 51st year, it should consider it may never be in a better position to claw ahead in the market where it all started for the company. In both the PC and smartphone segments, Apple&#8217;s market share has always been a distant second (and sometimes third and forth) to Windows and Android, in part because commoditization has consistently worked against the company. But when a single part now accounts for a third of the cost of a new PC, the regular rules don&#8217;t apply.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It&#8217;s not just that the company is better insulated than nearly every other player against runaway RAM costs, it&#8217;s that it also has a technological edge and the profit margins to compete on price at the same time. In recent quarters, the company&#8217;s share of the PC market has hovered around the 9 to 10 percent mark, meaning it&#8217;s consistently been about the fourth largest manufacturer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">For as long as the RAM shortage continues, Apple should\u00a0seriously consider sacrificing some of its PC profits to become a bigger player. So far, the company has moved to protect the margins on its more expensive devices. For example, it increased the price of the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro by $100. The company doubled the amount of base storage to make up for the hike.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_1jgb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Moving forward, it should do everything it can to maintain, and maybe even lower the price of its computers to a point where its competitors can&#8217;t meet it. If the Lenovos and HPs of the world can&#8217;t compete on either price or performance, consumers will move to Mac computers. As Apple looks to the next 50 years, it may not get another opportunity like the one it has right now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:max-w-[750px] md:grid-cols-article\">\n<div class=\"commerce col-body\" data-pw=\"disclosure\">\n<div class=\"mb-7 flex items-center rounded-lg p-3 p-5 w-fit flex-col md:flex-row\">\n<p class=\"text-[12px] text-battleship dark:text-gandalf md:text-[13px]\">If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"hidden flex-none md:block ml-8\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full flex-col flex-nowrap\">\n<div class=\"flex-auto\">\n<div class=\"sticky flex flex-none\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_sj7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"mx-auto md:px-10 md:max-w-[1220px]\">\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:max-w-[750px] md:grid-cols-article\">\n<div class=\"no-scrollbar col-body mx-4 mb-8 mt-2.5 overflow-x-scroll whitespace-nowrap md:mx-0 md:max-w-[750px] md:overflow-x-visible\">\n<div class=\"mx-auto max-w-screen-sm\">\n<ul class=\"inline-flex text-xs md:text-sm\">\n<li class=\"mr-6\">About our ads<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"grid grid-cols-article-mobile md:max-w-[750px] md:grid-cols-article\" data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">In the current RAM crisis, no company is better positioned to not only weather the storm but turn it to its advantage like Apple. It proved that when it released the MacBook Neo in early March. Despite only including 8GB of RAM, the Neo doesn&#8217;t feel compromised, a testament to the company&#8217;s silicon and software engineering. For Apple, it may be tempting to treat its latest MacBook as a one-off. That would be a mistake, because at this moment, the business decisions that made the Neo possible represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to become a bigger player in the PC market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">If you read Engadget, there&#8217;s a good chance you know the contours of the global memory shortage, but it&#8217;s worth repeating just how bad things have become in recent months. Just three companies \u2014 SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron \u2014 produce more than 90 percent of the world&#8217;s memory chips. At the end of last year, Micron announced it would end its consumer-facing business to focus on providing RAM and other components to AI customers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Citing data from TrendForce, <em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported in January that data centers would consume 70 percent of the high-end memory produced in 2026. As the Big Three shift more of their production to meet enterprise demand, they&#8217;re allocating fewer wafers for consumer products, leading to dramatic price increases in that market segment. According to data from Counterpoint Research, the price of memory \u2014 including consumer RAM kits and SSDs, as well as LPDDR5X memory for smartphones \u2014 increased by 50 percent during the final quarter of 2025. Before the end of the current quarter, the firm predicts prices will increase by another 40 to 50 percent, and the CEO of SK Hynix recently warned shortages could last until 2030.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_14gb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Since nearly all consumer electronics need some amount of RAM and storage, the trickle-down effects have come fast and hard. In December, before the situation got as bad as it is now, TrendForce warned that most of the major PC manufacturers were either considering, if not already planning, price hikes. This month, the firm warned laptop prices could increase by as much as 40 percent if manufacturers and retailers moved to protect their margins. Such a scenario would send the cost of a $900 model to about $1,260.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Amid all that, Apple added another point of pressure: the $600 MacBook Neo. During a recent investor call, Nick Wu, the chief financial officer of ASUS, described the Neo as &#8220;a shock to the entire market,&#8221; adding &#8220;all PC vendors, including upstream vendors like Microsoft, Intel and AMD&#8221; are taking the cute device &#8220;very seriously.&#8221; Wu warned ASUS would &#8220;need more time&#8221; before it could ready a response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">For ASUS and other Windows manufacturers, any response realistically may take a\u00a0year or more to formulate. That&#8217;s because the Neo represents both a technical and logistical hurdle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">To start, it&#8217;s a fundamentally different machine from the one most Windows OEMs are making right now. It has the advantage of using &#8220;unified memory&#8221; instead of a set of traditional RAM modules. The 8GB of RAM the Neo has is shared between the A18 Pro&#8217;s CPU and GPU, meaning it can more efficiently use the RAM that it does have. That&#8217;s part of the reason the Neo doesn&#8217;t feel like a Windows PC with 8GB of RAM. Apple didn&#8217;t get to the A18 Pro and the MacBook Neo by accident. It has spent more than a decade designing its own chips.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_19gb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Since 2024, Microsoft has mandated 16GB of RAM \u2014 and 256GB of solid-state storage \u2014 for PCs that are part of its Copilot+ AI program. That branding effort may not have amounted to much, with Copilot+ AI PCs accounting for just 1.9 percent of all computers sold in the first quarter of 2025, but it did push OEMs, including ASUS, Dell and others to make more capable machines. It also saw Microsoft rework Windows to better support ARM-based processors from Qualcomm. Still, it&#8217;s hard to see how Windows manufacturers can challenge Apple by going back to existing or older x86 chips with with less RAM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Qualcomm&#8217;s Snapdragon X2 processors could offer a potential response, but there are question marks there too. At CES 2026, the company announced the Snapdragon X2 Plus, a pared down version of its X2 Elite chipset with a six-core CPU. On paper, it should offer similar performance to the A18 Pro, but it doesn&#8217;t seem Qualcomm has produced the chip at scale or that Windows OEMs have shown much interest in it. As of the writing of this story, the company&#8217;s website lists just four X2 Plus-equipped models. I was only able to find one of those in stock, the $1,050 HP Omnibook 5. It has an OLED screen and more RAM than the Neo. Could HP repurpose something like the Omnibook 5 to take on the Neo? Maybe, but I&#8217;m not sure there&#8217;s getting around the need for 16GB to get Windows 11 running decently.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Even if the Snapdragon X2 Plus offers a stopgap measure, no company operates a supply chain quite like Apple. It has spent billions of dollars to make itself independent of companies like Qualcomm by designing its own Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, for example. It also doesn&#8217;t need to pay Microsoft a licensing fee to use a bloated Windows 11. Those are all factors that lead to OEMs like ASUS and Lenovo operating on razor thin margins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Per Statista, Apple earned a nearly 36.8 percent gross profit margin on its products in 2025. That&#8217;s almost exactly half as much as the gross margin it made on services, which grew to a record 75.4 percent last year. For comparison, ASUS has seen its profit margins erode to about 15.3 percent in recent quarters, or less than a third of Apple&#8217;s 2025 average of 46.9 percent. For ASUS and other Windows OEMs, the short-term outlook isn\u2019t good. HP recently told investors RAM now accounts for more than a third of the cost of its PCs. And if memory shortages continue, many of them will be forced to raise their prices to protect their margins.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_1egb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Apple is in no such position. The iPhone recently had its best quarter ever, contributing $85.27 billion to the company&#8217;s Q1 revenue. The fact that Mac revenue declined from $8.9 billion to $8.3 billion year-over-year didn&#8217;t make a dent to Apple&#8217;s bottom line. For the companies that must now compete against the Neo, it&#8217;s not a fair playing field. To Lenovo, Dell, HP and ASUS, PC sales are almost everything to their business. For Apple, it&#8217;s a side hustle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">As the company prepares to kick off its 51st year, it should consider it may never be in a better position to claw ahead in the market where it all started for the company. In both the PC and smartphone segments, Apple&#8217;s market share has always been a distant second (and sometimes third and forth) to Windows and Android, in part because commoditization has consistently worked against the company. But when a single part now accounts for a third of the cost of a new PC, the regular rules don&#8217;t apply.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">It&#8217;s not just that the company is better insulated than nearly every other player against runaway RAM costs, it&#8217;s that it also has a technological edge and the profit margins to compete on price at the same time. In recent quarters, the company&#8217;s share of the PC market has hovered around the 9 to 10 percent mark, meaning it&#8217;s consistently been about the fourth largest manufacturer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">For as long as the RAM shortage continues, Apple should\u00a0seriously consider sacrificing some of its PC profits to become a bigger player. So far, the company has moved to protect the margins on its more expensive devices. For example, it increased the price of the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro by $100. The company doubled the amount of base storage to make up for the hike.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<div class=\"py-2 text-center text-xs uppercase\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_1jgb7b4ilfaiv5tilbH1_\">\n<div class=\"flex size-full items-center justify-center bg-marshmallow text-center leading-3\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Moving forward, it should do everything it can to maintain, and maybe even lower the price of its computers to a point where its competitors can&#8217;t meet it. If the Lenovos and HPs of the world can&#8217;t compete on either price or performance, consumers will move to Mac computers. As Apple looks to the next 50 years, it may not get another opportunity like the one it has right now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/computing\/laptops\/the-ram-crisis-is-apples-best-chance-in-decades-to-capture-the-pc-market-130000672.html&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/d0eg2efx9yRWk9oRYfbDDw&#8211;\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD03MjE-\/https:\/\/d29szjachogqwa.cloudfront.net\/images\/user-uploaded\/img_2787.jpg&#8221;] Computing Laptops The RAM crisis is Apple&#8217;s best chance in decades to capture the PC market Ahead of its 50th anniversary, no company is better positioned to take advantage of memory shortages. Igor Bonifacic Senior reporter Tue, March 31, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC Add Engadget on Google Apple MacBook Neo Touch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,63],"class_list":["post-1857071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-engadget-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1857071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1857071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1857071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1857071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}