According to analysts, Chromebooks had an incredible year of 2020, with the last quarter being the strongest ever for Google laptops (via 9to5Google) According to research companies Gartner and Canalys, more than 30 million of the devices were shipped last year, with somewhere between 11 and 11.7 million shipments in the fourth quarter alone. Canalys says it’s an impressive 287 percent more than they were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Companies disagree about how much growth this is compared to 2019, but both estimate it to be a lot: Gartner estimates that Chromebooks have risen 80%, while Canalys says it is 109%. For comparison, PC sales have increased 11% this year, the biggest growth the category has seen in a decade. This does not give the impression that Chromebooks have outperformed PCs – Gartner estimates that 275 million traditional computers have been sold this year, but it does show that one category is experiencing an explosion of growth, while another is recovering after a fall.
Education has a lot to do with it, according to Canalys. Chromebooks are big sellers in the education market, and schools had to find a way to provide computers for remote learning to students at home during COVID. Even the vice president of Microsoft Education agrees that Chromebooks are great for schools – according to the audio of a leaked meeting obtained by Business Insider, he told his employees that “[i]In many cases, when schools buy Chromebooks or Windows PCs, Chromebooks are even faster and cheaper, easier to deploy and manage. “
Since students attend home school, they obviously will not be returning to a different PC. Many children I know have never used a traditional computer: they spend their time on Chromebooks and tablets.