Buying a New PC? A Windows 11 Price Hike Could Soon Make It More Expensive

As if soaring hardware costs weren’t making PC purchases difficult enough, a new report from Taiwan's United Daily News says PCs may soon get even more expensive as Microsoft has significantly raised the licensing fees for Windows 11.

Citing a PC brand executive, United Daily News reports that Microsoft typically raises its Windows licensing fees by single digits each year, but it has recently been asking manufacturers to pay 7-10% more. The report describes last month’s hike as unusually high and notes that the fee varies based on a PC’s processor. An Intel i7 machine, for example, would carry a higher licensing fee than an Intel i5.

It's unclear if the increased Windows fee may have an immediate impact on overall PC prices. According to United Daily News, manufacturers may have already factored in the revised fee for PCs on the shelves. In Taiwan, however, Asus and Acer are expected to increase PC prices by up to 5% this quarter, the outlet adds.

The PC market is already reeling under the pressure of rising memory, storage, motherboard, and processor costs. An increase in operating system costs would only make things worse for manufacturers.

Major players like Dell, HP, and even Apple have already announced price hikes, and the forecast for the rest of the year doesn’t look bright, either. A report published by IDC in June projected global PC shipments to drop by 11% this year and by 20% year-over-year in Q4.