PCs prices are higher than a year ago and will continue to rise as vendors react to the recent spike in component costs, according to Context.

The market watcher’s PriceIT benchmark service found that component costs on a standard notebook configuration in the Americas and Europe fell 9.4 per cent in the first seven months of 2009.

However, this trend then reversed, with component prices rising 4.5 per cent up to the end of January. As a result, market pricing among the A brand vendors has actually risen on an annual comparison.

Context pricing analyst Mathias Knoefel said that further price increases are likely.

“Component manufacturers have been very cautious and have scaled back both production and investment,” he said. “This has led to a cost increase in key components necessary for PC configurations.”