Report: Chromebook Shipments To Grow 27 percent in 2015
Chromebook sales in 2015 will improve 27 percent over 2014 shipments to
hit 7.3 million, according to a recent forecast from market research firm
Gartner.
Many of those shipments are likely to be for use in education,
which represented nearly three quarters of Chromebook sales in 2014.
"Since the first model launched in mid-2011, Google's Chromebook has seen success mainly in the education segment across all regions," said
Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner, in a prepared statement. "In 2014, the education sector purchased 72 percent of Chromebooks in
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), 69 percent in Asia/Pacific, and 60 percent in the United States."
In the U.S., that 60 percent share going to education is more than half again the 38.6 percent of Chromebooks sold to consumers and dwarfs
the 1.1 percent share of the devices sold to non-education enterprises. That small percentage of devices is in spite of efforts by Google to
increase business demand with improved offline access and functions for the netbooks.
"Chromebook is a device that can be considered by SMBs (small and midsize businesses) or new startup companies that do not have the
resources to invest too much in IT infrastructure," added Durand. "Chromebooks will become a valid device choice for employees as enterprises
seek to provide simple, secure, low-cost and easy-to-manage access to new web applications and legacy systems, unless a specific application
forces a Windows decision."
Most sales of the devices, 84 percent, were to North America in 2014, and that will continue throughout this year and next, according to
Gartner, with just more than 6 million shipments to the region predicted for this year and nearly 6.2 million in 2015.
EMEA will continue to account for the bulk of the remainder, increasing purchases of the devices from about 620,000 in 2014 to 866,000 this
year and approximately 1.28 million in 2016.
"After Samsung's decision to exit the European Chromebook market and focus on tablets, Acer took the lead to become the number 1 worldwide Chromebook vendor in 2014," according to a news release. "Acer sold
more than 2 million units in 2014. Samsung held the number 2 position with 1.7 million
units sold in 2014 and HP, a late entrant to the market, was ranked number 3,
with 1 million units, thanks to its strong connection with education partners."
About the Author
Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].