The general sales of Laptops in comparison to the past more than 2 decades, facing a downward trend. That is due to adaptation of smart mobile phones and its convenience in our daily life. Emails are rare to be used and people are now days more relying on WhatsApp and other instant social media platforms. Earlier laptops used to be simple work machines. Fast forward to 2026, they’re status symbols, portable workstations – practical, literal beasts at the tip of your fingers, but for some.
In Pakistan Laptops have been turned more expensive than forever, due to the rolling inflation, Pak Rupee to US Dollar devaluation and thanks to our Pakistan’s local custom and duty tariff and structure it has become almost unaffordable for the common man to purchase. This is how these price tags been behaving lately?
A person can wonder when they desperately need to upgrade their laptop, but their wallet doesn’t allow it. On top like the 4th Quarter 2025, the price trend of Memory Ram and Storage Modules in semi conductor industries, continues and inflated in the 1st Quarter of 2026. So upgrading memory ram is still not everybody’s cup of tea and that’s the tea we’re going to spill today.
Current Laptop Price Trends in Pakistan
1st Quarter 2026, the laptop prices in Pakistan have been behaving way worse than they were even before 2024-2025 (which was as drastic as it could get, we thought). There are multiple reasons for these varying price trends. But the thing to note is that these trends are affecting the different laptops based on categories.
After skimming through the different laptop retail platforms in Pakistan, we found out that entry-level laptops are being sold for around PKR 99,000-150,000. These laptops usually feature the Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 processors with 8GB RAM and up to 512GB SSD. Then there are the mid-range laptops (with Intel Core i5 or Ryzen 5 and up to 16GB RAM) selling at around PKR 150,000-250,000.
Upper mid-range laptops that are commonly used for gaming and content creation fall in the range of PKR 250,000-350,000 these days. These laptops have discrete GPUs and have a sleek ultrabook design. Moving on to high-end laptops (with Intel Core i7, Ryzen 7, and up to 16GB RAM), which cost PKR 350,000-500,000.
Now, the big sharks – the top-tier premium laptops like MacBook Pro models and gaming laptops. Thanks to their high-end CPUs and professional GPUs, these laptops are being sold at a whopping range of PKR 500,000-800,000. Wait… that’s not the price ceiling. You can get ultra-high-end, extreme gaming laptops for more than PKR 800,000.
Reasons for the Laptop Price Trends Impacting Pakistan
The mid year of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 have seen some big bumps in laptop pricing. To put it mildly, the graph’s been anything but stable. Below are the main reasons why.
Rising Prices of RAM & SSDs
One of the main reasons why laptop prices are spiking so badly in not just Pakistan, but the rest of the world, is the rising prices of RAM and SSDs. There’s literally a global price pandemic going on. The reason is mainly the insane increase in the demand for these cards.
Business Recorder newspaper in Pakistan, clearly mentions that in the next few years, if Pakistan wants to be able to afford RAM and SSDs, it should start manufacturing them locally. This tells us how devastating the prices of RAM and SSDs are going to be in the future. In fact, the prices of AI chips are also skyrocketing, which means AI-focused laptops are going to have an even crazier selling price than regular modern laptops.
Geo-Political Challenges
Supply chain is basically the whole network that starts from getting the product ready and then getting it to the customers’/end-users’ hands. Now, the very first step of this process (that is, sourcing raw material) has been facing certain glitches. This is because a lot of semiconductor materials are not easily available. Why? Let’s collectively blame the geopolitical conditions of the world right now.
This is because China wants authority over Taiwan. And just you guess which country’s the global leader in advanced semiconductor manufacturing? Taiwan! Hence, this tension is causing some massive disruption in the supply chain.
Heavy Shipping & Logistics Costs
It was expected that the shipping and logistics costs were yet to see a decline ever since Covid when Iran, Israel war and disturbance in the Middle East has multiplied the freight and shipping costs. The laptops expecting to arrive later in 2nd Quarter of 2026 will have a more significant price increase which will be difficult to absorb by the existing already suffering market. It is forecasted that there will be shortage of deliveries of Laptops and other computer hardware products due to no vessel movement in Taiwan, China, and South Korea ports. So expect the worst of all times ahead. This basically gives rise to something called the ‘scarcity effect’ when the laptops are not available in large quantities. Thus, high-demand, low-supply, and boom! Prices are going sky-high when even the alternate method of air flight carrier movement is also 0 % due to tension in UAE Dubai.
Exchange Rate Impact
Currency fluctuations affect the price of imports in Pakistan all year long. So honestly, it’s not that big of a shocker. The reason for this frequent fluctuation is that we pay for our imports in USD. When the value of PKR goes down (compared to USD), the importers have to pay more in PKR. Naturally, they don’t personally bear this cost and transfer it to the end-users.
And it’s not just the case for imported laptops. It is a fact that Pakistan is pretty behind when it comes to local hardware manufacturing. So even for laptops that are ‘made in Pakistan’, the major bulk of hardware components are imported from foreign countries like China, the USA, Vietnam, and the UAE, among a few others. Regardless of the country, the price is paid in dollars, hence the hefty price hike.
What Rising Laptop Price Means for Consumers?
Rising laptop prices are never a good omen, we tell you. It’s always the beginning of the annual slump of the tech industry. But as bad as it is this time, the consequences are just as brutal.
Higher Starting Prices
Entry-level laptops used to cost around PKR 45,000-85,000 at the start of 2022. Now the prices have more than doubled. This means first-time buyers (like students and teenagers) will have to save more to get hold of a laptop with basic configurations. And by basic, we mean basic; you should expect MS Office and Chrome to be the only highlights of your laptop.
Less Value for Money
Value in laptops means more advanced features that justify the price you just paid. Sadly, you’ll be getting less value for the money you’ll be paying for your laptop in 2026. The reason is pretty evident. The RAM and SSD shortage will not let you enjoy memory and storage perks as you did pre-price-pandemic.
Compromised Performance
As a result of the minimized configuration in laptops nowadays, the overall performance will suffer the most. Your laptops will struggle in terms of multitasking. System lags will occur more frequently, even if your workload is light, not tight. There’ll be less space for storage, and boy, don’t get us started on the response time due to weaker processors.
Longer Upgrade Cycles
Before the price pandemic hit, most Pakistanis, instead of upgrading their laptops, used to upgrade different components. For example, they’d upgrade the RAM capacity or storage capacity to save a few bucks. There were some users who’d upgrade their devices (mainly tech-enthusiasts). Now, they won’t be able to upgrade their laptops as easily, thanks to the high upgrade costs. This would result in higher repairs and lower laptop life-cycles.
Turning to Second-Hand Laptops
When brand-new laptops become out-of-budget, users have no other option but to go for the used laptops. While it is good from a sustainability POV, the specs would come with some faults. So, be ready to experience battery health and warranty limitations with your newly-purchased second-hand laptops.
Final Verdict – Are Laptop Prices Going Up or Down?
Laptop prices in Pakistan will definitely have an upward trend with demand and supply crises due to non-availability! Going for refurbished will be more likely considered as a better alternative till stock lasts.
So, from where we see it, you’ve got two options. Save your money now and suffer laptop-less. Or, you could bear the toxic hit now and use your laptop to make more money. We recommend the latter because without a laptop, you can neither study, freelance, nor survive in a corporate environment.
