PC prices have been raised by a third since Brexit

In the months following on from the Brexit vote we heard various vendors upping the prices of their products. Last July HTC announced a 10 per cent price hike on the Vive VR headset citing ‘recent currency valuation changes’ (though the company recently just dropped the price by £200).

Likewise Dell set out a blanket increase of 10 per cent across all its products. But it’s not just the odd brand that lifted prices, new data has found that the average trade price of PCs in the UK has risen by almost a third over the past year.

According to new info from Context, the average sales prices (ASPs) for desktops, notebooks and workstations hit £480 in July and August, up 30 per cent year on year.

But it wasn’t just Brexit that was the cause of the price increases. A multitude of factors, including component shortages in key areas including memory, growing demand for higher-spec systems and decreased sales for lower-margin, were also to blame, noted Context senior analyst Marie-Christine Pygott.

Those factors meant that the average price of PCs sold by distributors throughout Europe rose 12 per cent year on year, though that is a far cry from the 30 per cent in the UK. 

In addition to the previously mentioned brands, OEMs such as HP, Lenovo Apple and Asus all also increased their prices. Some vendors have even continued to raise prices, in spite of the pound’s (semi) resurgance this year. Evidently many of those that raised their prices aren’t jumping at the chance to bring them back to pre-Brexit levels.