COVID-19 has had many negative effects on the market, but it has been great for the PC market, as millions of people have started to work and learn at home. As a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chromebook market in particular has exploded with more than 4-fold growth.
As reported by Canalys this week, the fourth quarter of 2020 saw the Chromebook market boom. Specifically, shipping just over 11 million units in the last quarter, compared with about 2.5 million in the same period in 2019. Throughout 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chromebook market as a whole saw more 30 million units shipped.
Breaking that number, Lenovo was the biggest winner. The company still fell short of the 3.5 million units sold by HP, but the 2.8 million Lenovo Chromebooks shipped in the fourth quarter of 2020 represented a massive growth of 1,766%. Samsung, Asus, Acer and Dell also had steady three-digit growth during the pandemic, but did not gain any traction compared to competitors. Canalys Research Director Rushabh Doshi said:
Demand for Chromebooks is on the rise. With many countries being forced to accelerate their digital education plans after additional blocks, schools and universities are crying out for easy-to-deploy solutions and Google’s digital offerings for education are proving to be quite popular over rival platforms, especially in the U.S. and in Western Europe. With governments in many countries rushing towards a much-needed 1: 1 student device ratio, demand for Chromebooks for education is expected to remain strong until 2021. Outside education, there has also been growing interest from consumers and traditional business customers looking for Chromebooks to ensure business continuity or personal computing at affordable prices.
This came along with growth for tablets as well, taking this market to its highest peak since 2015, with just 53 million tablets sold in the fourth quarter of 2020. Apple, of course, dominated this market with its excellent iPad line, but Samsung had a strong second place with almost the same 40% growth compared to the previous year. The overall PC market also saw a 35% jump year-over-year as a result of the pandemic, but clearly much of that focus was on Chromebooks, probably due to affordable prices.
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