Consumers shun PC upgrades as Amazon US January 2026 CPU sales reportedly decline 51% vs January 2025
TechEpiphany has released the January 2026 CPU sales data from Amazon US. The data shows that AMD remains undefeated in both total CPUs sold and the revenue generated. Intel is a distant second, which is not surprising considering the Arrow Lake CPUs didn’t live up to fan expectations, and next-gen Nova Lake CPUs aren’t yet out.
Looking at some numbers, AMD sold 23,050 Ryzen CPUs, accounting for 88.32% of total CPUs sold in January 2026 on Amazon. Intel reportedly only sold 3,050, a mere 11.68% share. Revenue was in line with units sold, as AMD earned $7,196,106.50 (88.57%), while Intel could only manage $929,583.00 (11.43%). The most popular CPUs were the AMD Zen 5 Ryzen 9000, followed by the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors, and the aging Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 chips.
A total of 26,100 CPUs sold in January 2026 on Amazon US might look decent on the surface. However, if we compare the January 2026 CPU sales to January 2025, we see a concerning trend: Many consumers/gamers are not upgrading.
High CPU, GPU, RAM, and SSD costs are driving consumers away
Based on TechEpiphany’s reporting, 3DCenter has put together a nice table showing the Amazon US CPU sales data from December 2024 to January 2026. There was an eye-opening 51% decline in CPU sales in January 2026 vs January 2025. In the same time period, Average Selling Price (ASP) jumped 34.4% from $227 in January 2025 to $305 in January 2026.
We also know that the price of consumer DDR5/DDR4 RAM has exploded over the past few months, and it is showing no signs of slowing down. Unfortunately, SSDs and GPUs have also followed suit. For instance, the 1 TB Kingston NV3 was retailing for just $53 back in May 2025 on Amazon, according to camelcamelcamel. The same SSD is now $170. Similarly, the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB has also seen a sharp price increase.
In other words, the 51% decline in CPU sales in January 2026 on Amazon can be directly linked to the rising prices of RAM, SSD, and GPUs. What use is a new, more powerful CPU when you can’t buy other critical components at reasonable prices?
We don’t know how much longer this dreadful market will continue. Intel is launching the next-gen Nova Lake CPUs, reportedly with absurd power limits, by the end of 2026. So, CPU sales could pick up, especially if memory, storage, and GPUs also get cheaper.
Source(s)
TechEpiphany on X, 3DCenter on X, camelcamel, Teaser image source: Intel, AMD, PabitraKaity on Pixabay, edited
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