Chromebook sales will grow in double digits this year – one of the few areas of growth in the PC market, along with Windows-based convertibles and gaming PCs.
Mikako Kitagawa, a Gartner analyst, shared Gartner’s findings at an event recently, and we were able to source the firm’s Chromebook figures. This year, shipments are expected to climb about 22.4%: from 6 million to almost 7.4 million.
Despite the increase, Chromebooks are still only a small section of the overall PC market, which Gartner expects to reach 290 million this year.
90% of Chromebooks shipped were sold in North America in 2015; the region will continue to be the world’s largest market for the devices. Western Europe will follow. Other regions, such as South America and Asia, performed much more poorly. Connectivity, which Chromebooks rely on, is an issue in the emerging markets that make up the majority of these regions. Availability is also low outside of North America.
Education remains the main market for Chromebooks. Outside of this, they have not been taken on as a Windows PC replacement yet, especially not in business, where users value the ability to work offline. However, Chromebooks do have some business applications – as secondary laptops or thin clients, for example.
| Worldwide Chromebook Shipments, 2012 – 2019 (000s) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | |
| Shipments | 307 | 2,703 | 5,728 | 6,039 | 7,390 | 8,855 | 10,273 | 11,632 |
| Source: Gartner | ||||||||
