Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) stock is trading lower by almost 9% during Friday’s premarket session as investors react to the PC shipment slowdown concerns raised during Intel Corporation’s (NASDAQ:INTC) third-quarter fiscal 2026 results posted after Thursday’s closing bell.
Intel Raises Concern on PC Market Slowdown
Intel reported strong third-quarter results with revenue at $16.51 billion exceeding analysts’ consensus estimate of $16.47 billion, driven by record growth in the Data Center and AI segment, offset by a decline in Client Computing Group due to memory shortages.
However, the shares plummeted more than 22% in extended trading on Thursday as it issued a weak fourth-quarter forecast below analyst estimates on both revenue and earnings per share.
Intel expects a weak global PC market due to memory issues, with a long-term positive outlook as AI applications grow.
Management said the memory shortage pressure intensified during the third quarter, resulting in a meaningful adjustment in customer purchasing patterns.
“The pace of this PC correction has accelerated over the last 2 months, as our OEM partners are aggressively managing inventory to match the softer sell-through. We expect the current environment to persist until memory availability and prices begin to normalize”, said CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
Management expects the 2026 PC unit total addressable market, or TAM, to decline approximately 12% with second-half units down more than 20%.
For 2027, the company expects TAM to decline about 10% with a more pronounced decline during the first half, with the potential for improvement in the second half.
Media Reports Confirm the Softening Trend
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 55.4 million units in the third quarter of 2026, down 22.4% year over year, said Gartner in its October report.
The report said that all of the top six worldwide PC vendors, including Dell, Acer, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ), Lenovo Group Ltd. (OTC:LNVGY), and ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (OTC:AKCPF), experienced shipment declines in the third quarter of 2026.
Gartner Principal Research Analyst Namrata Banerjee attributed the shipment decline primarily to the full impact of rising memory and storage costs on PC pricing being passed on to consumers.
The research firm highlighted that vendors’ decisions to prioritize higher-priced configurations had restricted access to affordable devices, while enterprise customers increasingly focused on targeted technology investments such as workstations and AI PCs rather than broad-based PC deployments.
Counterpoint Research expects global PC shipments to decline 27% year over year in the fourth quarter.
Full-year shipments in 2027 are forecasted to remain broadly flat compared with 2026, indicating stabilization at a lower volume level, though should not be mistaken for recovery, said the research firm.
Cascading Impact on PC Players
The shares of major peers are trading down in Friday’s premarket session.
Dell were down by 9.89%, HP Inc. fell 8.01% and Intel shares were down 25.43%, at the time of publication.
The next catalyst for Dell is its earnings report on Nov. 24, 2026.
Analysts expect earnings of $6.55 per share, up from $2.59 a year earlier. Revenue is projected to reach $49.17 billion, up from $27 billion in the prior-year period.
DELL Price Action: Dell Technologies shares were down 11.95% at $418.68 during premarket trading on Friday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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