By Isabelle Bousquette

Dell Technologies is broadening its personal computer portfolio to target a wider range of price points after the unit underperformed in 2025, losing market share to competitors.

Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman Jeff Clarke, who temporarily inherited oversight of the PC business unit about four months ago, said that by focusing too much on high-end, premium PCs for commercial customers, Dell lost out on a huge part of the market.

"We've got a bit off course," Clarke said.

At CES in Las Vegas this week Dell announced plans to play in some of those lower tiers with new product releases set to hit the market in 2026. It also plans to revive a popular line of PCs.

Dell said Rob Bruckner, who joined the company in early December, will now lead the commercial PC business. Clarke will continue to lead the consumer side until a new leader is chosen.

The broadening comes at a challenging time for all PC makers as they contend with skyrocketing prices for memory chips. The PC market is forecast to contract by 2.4% in 2026 after growing 6.6% in 2025, according to research from International Data Corp.

Dell's PCs in 2025 underperformed both in the enterprise and consumer space compared with competitors.

In consumer, Dell's market share went from 5% to 4.6% between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the fourth quarter of 2025, according to IDC. While in enterprise, where it's stronger but still lags behind Lenovo and HP, its market share slipped from 22.5% to 21.2% during that time frame.

Overall revenue for Dell's PC business shrank to $48.4 billion in 2025 from $48.9 billion in 2024, roughly a 1% decline, while competitors' businesses grew.

Traditionally, Dell has been successful with the premium band of commercial customers, including big corporate enterprises, said Asiya Merchant, technology hardware and tech supply chain analyst at Citi Research.

Still, the company was hurt by its lack of product breadth, she said. On the consumer side, Dell hasn't competed in lower price bands, she said.

Another major problem, Clarke said, was that the company alienated some of its most passionate consumers last year when it discontinued its XPS line of computers. At CES Monday, the company said it is now reviving that XPS brand.

"I owe you an apology. We didn't listen to you. You were right on branding," Clarke said to a room of tech reporters and enthusiasts during a CES preview in December. He added, "We can course correct, we can be humble, and we can correct decisions that we've made in the past."

Write to Isabelle Bousquette at isabelle.bousquette@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 05, 2026 18:00 ET (23:00 GMT)

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