The price of the memory that goes inside a PC or a server roughly doubled twice over this year, and the companies that buy those machines by the pallet and resell them, configured, to corporate IT departments were widely expected to absorb the difference. Contract prices for DRAM rose 90-95% quarter on quarter in the first three months of 2026 and a further 58-63% in the second, according to TrendForce, as memory makers steered supply toward servers and artificial-intelligence systems. Memory now runs to roughly 35% of a PC's bill of materials, up from 15-18% before, per IDC citing HP.

Three resellers passed it through and kept the margin. That is the finding, and it is not what their share prices say.

The quarter, name by name

Insight Enterprises sources, configures, finances and services hardware, software and cloud licences for large enterprises, and increasingly sells the consulting hours around them. Second-quarter revenue rose 14.7% to $2.40bn while gross profit rose 17.9%, lifting gross margin 59 basis points to 21.7%. Operating income grew 23%. Cloud gross profit rose 39% to $171m and services gross profit 21% to $95m; infrastructure hardware — servers, storage, networking — grew more than 20% as customers rebuild on-premise capacity for AI workloads. Management raised full-year adjusted earnings guidance to $12.20-$12.70 a share from $11.00-$11.50, the company said. That is a genuine turn: 2025 revenue fell 5.2% to $8.25bn and net income fell 37%.

Arrow Electronics is the largest of the three and the odd one out structurally. Its Global Components arm — semiconductors, passives, interconnect and memory sold to manufacturers — is 73% of revenue and runs on an aerospace, defense and industrial cycle management calls the "second innings," with book-to-bill above 1 in all three regions. The smaller Global Enterprise Computing Solutions arm resells data-center, cloud and security systems through other resellers. Group revenue rose 31.8% to $9.99bn, gross profit 32.6%, and operating income 98%, with operating expenses falling 10.5 percentage points to 64.1% of gross profit. Enterprise backlog rose more than 75% year on year to a record.

PC Connection, the smallest at a $2.05bn market value, sells to small and mid-sized businesses, schools and government alongside larger enterprises. Revenue rose 12.4% to a record $854m, gross profit 14.3%, and operating income 44.3%. But endpoint device revenue rose 19% on 3% unit growth — inflation, not demand — and 40% of the quarter's revenue landed in June as customers pulled orders forward ahead of price increases. Inventory rose $61.5m and receivables $80.6m in the quarter; third-quarter revenue is guided down sequentially.

The control case is CDW, the best-known corporate reseller in the United States. Its revenue grew 10.0% to $6.57bn, gross profit only 6.3%, gross margin fell 70 basis points to 20.1% and operating income rose 2.0%. The shares fell 12% on that print. Passing memory inflation through with margin intact was a choice, not a tide.

Where the prices sit

Insight rose 34.5% in the month to 14 August, and accounts for roughly three-quarters of the group's gain; PC Connection added 6.6% and Arrow 3.8%. But Insight climbed 21.6% between 20 July and 5 August, before it reported — a run that began with its 1 July announcement that it would be a launch partner for Microsoft's AI-powered Frontier Suite. Nearby channel names went nowhere much: Avnet +11.0%, CDW +6.5%, TD Synnex +3.5%, ScanSource -0.3%.

Arrow's Q2 revenue and $5.45 of non-GAAP earnings beat consensus near $9.31bn and $4.17, and the stock fell 8.4% the next day, to $203.51 from $222.29. The reasons were dated and specific: third-quarter guidance of $4.83-$5.03 implies a sequential earnings decline, and the company took a $27m charge on underperforming multiyear contracts with one strategic partner, terminating part of a distribution agreement covering about $700m of revenue, with more charges flagged for the second half. Truist cut its target to $250 while Raymond James raised its to $250.

On valuation the three separate cleanly. Arrow is the cheapest of the channel on every measure — 13.6x trailing and 10.5x forward earnings, 1.57x book, an 8.2% free-cash-flow yield — and the caveat is that consensus has 2027 earnings growth decelerating to 9.4% after a near-doubling this year. Insight trades at 22.5x trailing collapsing to 13.5x forward, or roughly 12.4x management's own raised midpoint, and is the cheapest of the group at 2.46x gross profit; at $154.25 it has already passed Canaccord's raised $140 target and sits within 4% of JPMorgan's $160. PC Connection is the most expensive on the measure that matters for a reseller — 3.63x gross profit, 19.4x forward earnings — for consensus 2027 earnings growth of 6.9%, with a 1.7% free-cash-flow yield after the working-capital build.

Insight's own management named the risk in the business: the second half decelerates on program comparisons, acquisition laps and memory pricing pressure on devices, with the fourth quarter the weakest for earnings growth. Hardware gross margin was already down 110 basis points on mix.

The setup

Where it stands — Three resellers expanded gross margin through a memory-price shock; the one with the best quarter, Arrow, trades cheapest and fell on it.

Would confirm — Arrow's third-quarter enterprise-computing revenue landing above the guided $2.1-$2.3bn with the record backlog converting.

Would invalidate — Gross margin contracting year on year at any of the three next quarter, as it already has at CDW.

Watch next — November quarterly reports; PC Connection guided third-quarter revenue down sequentially and expects roughly $150m of inventory unwind by year-end.

Valuation — Arrow 13.6x trailing/10.5x forward; Insight 22.5x/13.5x, near 12.4x on guidance; PC Connection 21.4x/19.4x on 6.9% growth.