Canalys: Chromebook market grew 122 percent in third quarter

In the third quarter of 2020, manufacturers shipped a total of 9.4 million Chromebooks, an increase of 122 percent compared to the same period last year, research company Canalys concluded.

Chromebooks were the product group with the fastest growth in popularity in the third quarter, with a growth rate of 122 percent. Chromebooks are followed by detachables, or tablets that can be converted into laptops with a keyboard part; its deliveries grew by 88 percent. The supply of thin laptops also increased, by 57 percent, according to Canalys.

The research firm attributes the growth to the increase in working from home. However, consumers and business users seem reluctant to buy traditional towers and small desktop PCs. According to Canalys, their delivery fell by 33 percent and the supply of workstation PCs also decreased, by 27 percent.

Source: Canalys PC Analysis (sell-in shipments), November 2020

HP remains the most popular Chromebook manufacturer by the numbers. That company controls a third of the total Chromebook market. Lenovo is rapidly gaining popularity. While that company had a market share of 9.3 percent last year, that would have risen to 18.9 percent, with Lenovo successively overtaking Dell, Acer and Asus in the global Chromebook market. Canalys does not report the market share of Chromebooks in the total PC market, but Gartner spoke in October of an 11 percent market share for the laptops with Chrome OS.