Many people already know about the RAM crisis, or what some call the "RAMpocalypse". It affects a wide variety of electronics, so fewer consumers are willing to buy new products. The same goes for PCs and gaming products, AMD said in its recent Q1 2026 earnings.
Declining sales
During AMD's Q1 2026 earnings briefing, the company confirmed a 23% year-over-year increase in revenue for its "Client and Gaming" category. Despite that, this USD3.6 billion (RM14.23 billion) revenue also represents a roughly 9% decline compared to Q4 2025's USD 3.94 billion (RM15.57 billion).
AMD's Q1 2026 revenue is due to popular products like the Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, Ryzen AI laptops, and Radeon GPU-powered consoles like the Sony PS5. The company said that demand for CPUs will remain strong in Q2 2026. However, overall demand is expected to decline in 2H 2026 due to increased RAM prices.
Consumers to stop buying in 2H 2026
Case in point, Microsoft and Sony have recently announced price increases for the Xbox and PlayStation 5 consoles. Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other products with RAM will see the same price increases. Higher prices mean fewer people are willing to spend, resulting in lower sales and revenue.
However, we are planning for second-half PC shipments to be lower due to higher memory and component costs. Against this backdrop, we still expect our client revenue to grow year-over-year and outperform the market, driven by the strength of our Ryzen portfolio and expanding commercial adoption. - Dr Lisa Su, AMD CEO.
Currently, many experts claim that even CPU prices may go up by 10% due to AI demand. 2026 is probably a bad year to buy a CPU, GPU, RAM or SSD, and it's hard to say when (if ever) prices will come back down. That means we'll all have to accept current prices if we wish to upgrade our PCs or mobile devices.
How about you? Will you just wait for prices to fall or get what you want now? Let us know in the comments if you still plan to buy a new phone or computer in 2026.
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