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The PC Market’s “Memflation” Moment: Why Q1 Shipment Growth Is a Mirage

PC shipment data from Gartner and IDC suggests a healthy market on the surface, but both firms warn that Q1 2026 growth is being driven by inventory build, rising memory costs, and Windows 10 migration rather than real demand. For ITAD and recycling executives, memflation is likely to boost residual values for Windows 11-capable enterprise fleets even as a large cohort of non-upgradeable Windows 10 devices tilts toward materials recovery, while shifting vendor share, growing Apple volumes, and geopolitical freight shocks force a rethink of pricing, logistics, and Apple-specific capabilities over the next 18–36 months. Continue reading below.
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About this analysis: PC shipment data from Gartner and IDC suggests a healthy market on the surface, but both firms warn that Q1 2026 growth is being driven by inventory build, rising memory costs, and Windows 10 migration rather than real demand. For ITAD and recycling executives, the real story is downstream: memflation is likely to boost residual values for Windows 11-capable enterprise fleets even as a large cohort of non-upgradeable Windows 10 devices tilts toward materials recovery, while shifting vendor share, growing Apple volumes, and geopolitical freight shocks force a rethink of pricing, logistics, and Apple-specific capabilities over the next 18–36 months.

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Author: David Daoud | Principal Analyst

David Daoud has researched the mainstream IT hardware market since 1996 and expanded into hardware disposition research in 2003. He has spearheaded the creation of IDC’s GRADE certification. Since then, David has been providing consulting and expert advice to companies looking to establish best practice in their IT equipment decommissioning and helped leading ITAD service providers assess demand, understand competition, and forecast what’s to come. David is currently the Principal Analyst at Compliance Standards, which focuses entirely on the end-of-life of IT equipment. He can be reached at 754-229-0095 or at ddaoud@compliance-standards.com
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MORE ANALYSES:

Compliance: Navigating the Post-Basel ITAD Compliance Landscape in 2026

Mar 31, 2026

As of Q1 2026, the operating environment that the global ITAD industry was built around has been evolving and materially changing. The Basel Convention’s 2025 amendments have subjected virtually all transboundary e-waste movements to Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedures, eliminating the permissive classifications that allowed untested equipment to cross borders with minimal scrutiny. Malaysia, until recently the principal global destination for imported e-waste, has imposed an absolute prohibition on all e-waste imports, with the ban was formally gazetted into law on April 1, 2026, removing a critical outlet from the global processing chain overnight. And for enterprises subject to the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, gaps in downstream asset-disposition tracking have now become an audit exposure.

This report analyzes what these developments mean for ITAD operators, enterprise asset managers, and logistics providers, and sets out the contractual, operational, and reporting steps required to remain compliant, auditable, and insurable in this new environment.

ITAD M&A Outlook: Lessons from the MSP Consolidation Wave and Three Scenarios for the ITAD Market

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This report is an investor-grade analysis of how the IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) market is likely to consolidate over the next five to seven years, using the Managed Service Provider (MSP) consolidation cycle as a model and cautionary tale. It first reconstructs how MSPs went from a fragmented, owner‑operator landscape in 2018 to a market dominated by a handful of scaled platforms, and then maps those lessons onto today’s ITAD sector, which now shows similar fragmentation, secular growth, and rising private equity interest.

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Future Tech: AI Vision Is Moving From Lab to Line in E‑Waste Sorting

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AI‑driven camera sorting is moving from lab demos into practical plant‑floor tools for ITAD and electronics recyclers. Early systems like Apple’s A.R.I.S. show that low‑cost vision models running on commodity hardware can drive pneumatic sorters at line speed and deliver high‑purity metal and PCB streams, suggesting that facilities which start piloting these techniques now will gain a structural edge on recovery, cost, and specification compliance over the next three to five years.

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Mar 5, 2026

In this memo to clients, we note that the global memory market is showing an accelerated phase of tightening, driven by the aggressive expansion of AI infrastructure as the primary catalyst. Right now, we are tracking two distinct yet deeply connected market developments: massive contract price hikes from major memory foundries, exceeding 100% in recent negotiations, and a surge in automated, large-scale hoarding of DDR5 inventory, which could significantly affect how components are tracked and resold. Collectively, these indicators point to a period of intensified supply chain distortion and heightened competition for memory components.

For the secondary hardware ecosystem, encompassing IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) operators, refurbishers, and component traders, this primary market squeeze could alter current business dynamics.

ITAD Industry Briefing: February Edition

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HP Inc. earnings point to memory inflation challenge

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HP Inc. has just reported its first fiscal quarter of 2026, showing an 11% year-over-year jump in Personal Systems revenue to 10.3 billion dollars and a 12% growth in PC units shipped . But the real story is that memory inflation is now reshaping the economics of hardware, with HP warning that surging DRAM and NAND costs, along with U.S. trade regulations, are pressuring margins and weighing on its full-year outlook.

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It took 12 days for Anthropic to release two major AI models back to back. And with each release, the capability bar moves up, software value gets questioned, and the hardware underneath it all turns over faster than your refresh cycle was ever designed to handle.  This episode is a straight-talk breakdown of what that pace means for enterprise IT strategy, ITAM programs, and ITAD operations. This is not AI hype, but an honest analysis on the very real decisions landing on your desk right now as a result of it.

SIMS and Iron Mountain Are Repricing the ITAD and Positioning it as a Primary Growth Engine

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In this episode, David Daoud of Compliance Standards LLC examines how Sims Limited and Iron Mountain are repositioning IT asset disposition from an operational afterthought to a primary growth engine inside publicly traded platforms. Both companies recently reported approximately 70% year-over-year growth in their ITAD divisions. More importantly, they elevated Asset Lifecycle Management and Sims Lifecycle Services in their earnings narratives, capital allocation priorities, and forward guidance.

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