Laptops powered by Google’s handy Chrome OS have proven to be great machines for college students or just about anyone looking for a reliable and affordable laptop for everyday computing needs. The incredible growth that the Chromebook market saw in the third quarter of 2020 is testament to their usefulness in a world shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic. Continuing this blistering growth, the market has quadrupled in Q4 2020 compared to the same period a year ago.
According to data collected by research company Canalys11.2 million Chromebooks shipped in the last quarter of 2020 alone – a huge jump from the 2.9 million units in the last quarter of 2019. As in the third quarter of 2020, HP led growth in the fourth quarter of 2020 by shipping 3.5 million copies.
Growth of the Chromebook market in 2020.
In total, a total of 30.7 million copies were shipped in 2020, an increase of more than 100% from the 14.7 million copies sold in 2019. HP was the largest supplier with 9.4 million copies and a 31% market share. Lenovo and Dell were in second place with 22% and 15% market shares respectively. Samsung witnessed an annual growth of 400%, pushing Asus to fifth place in the charts with a 6% market share.
Here’s what Canalys Research Director Rushabh Doshi had to say about the explosive growth of the Chromebook market in 2020:
The demand for Chromebooks is enormous. With many countries forced to speed up their digital education plans in the wake of additional blockages, schools and universities are clamoring for easy-to-implement solutions and Google’s digital offering for education is proving quite popular over competing platforms, especially in the US and Western countries. Europe. With governments in many countries racing towards a much-needed 1: 1 ratio of devices to students, the demand for Chromebooks for education is expected to remain strong in 2021. Outside of education, there is also an increasing interest from consumers and traditional commercial customers for Chromebooks. to seek to ensure affordable continuity for business or personal computing.
What’s especially interesting about Chromebooks is that they have yet to penetrate potentially huge markets like India. Thanks to the increasing availability of affordable internet – something Chromebooks rely heavily on – they have the potential to dramatically increase their market share by entering new markets that weren’t as accessible or viable before.
