Citing data from The NPD Group, Google today revealed that sales of Chromebooks in the U.S. grew by 127 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, compared to just 40 percent for Windows and Mac laptops.
“While people are spending more time at home than on the go, they’re relying increasingly on personal desktops and laptops to make everyday life easier,” Google head of Chrome OS developer relations Iein Valdez noted. “Whether they’re video-chatting with friends and family, discovering entertaining apps and games, multitasking at work, or pursuing a passion project, bigger screens and better performance have made all the difference.”
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But here’s the interesting bit, at least in the U.S.: While sales of all PCs are up thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, sales of Chromebooks, in particular, are through the roof. The NPD Group says that Chromebook sales surged 127 percent YOY between March and June while laptop sales overall were up just 40 percent.
The revelation was made as part of a developer-related post I’ll be writing about shortly. But those are some interesting numbers regardless.
Stooks
<blockquote><em><a href="#560930">In reply to Saarek:</a></em></blockquote><p>Rising fast. .042% as of July according to Netmarketshare. </p><p><br></p><p>If Covid/work from home continues for another 6 months maybe they will cross the half of 1% mark.</p>
dftf
<p>Given wage-cuts and job-losses in the current times, their cheaper-price probably has something to do with that!</p><p><br></p><p>Many Chromebooks in the UK start around £199 (£165 before VAT; approx $215) for a 14" screen, 4GB RAM, 32GB storage and Intel Celeron processor. A brief look on Argos shows the cheapest Windows laptop (that's not on a clearance offer) is £279 (£233 before VAT; approx $305) for an Acer Aspire3 with 15.6" screen, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and Intel Celeron dual-core CPU.</p>
dftf
<blockquote><em><a href="#560944">In reply to dftf:</a></em></blockquote><p>I'm also somewhat surprised dual-core CPUs are still a thing!</p>
Stooks
<blockquote><em><a href="#560944">In reply to dftf:</a></em></blockquote><p>Supply and price. My company went out and bought 300 laptops in March, Windows laptops. We could not get the same model. I bought 30 from the local Micro center as others went to Bestbuy etc. It was slim pickings and it only got worse. They did have Chromebooks….but we did NOT want anything to do with them.</p>
Stooks
<p>What do you have left? We only have Chromebooks. Ahhh fuuuuuuudgeee……hmmmmmm…..OK we will take them………SIGH!</p><p><br></p>
Stooks
<blockquote><em><a href="#561168">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Well I work in IT Infrastructure (Networking) but one of the sections of the department, is responsible for procuring hardware for users. My office is right next to the manager of this section.</p><p><br></p><p>Because of COVID-19 that job has gone completely crazy. His team is crushed from the workload. Conference rooms have been turned in to laptop imaging rooms. They are buying hardware to accommodate working from home and video conferencing as fast as they can. The only road block to doing so has been hardware availability. As in laptops and web cam's mostly but for a while just about anything as the virus stopped the flow (for a time) of hardware from China.</p><p><br></p><p>The exact same thing is happening for schools. Chromebooks being usually the cheaper alternative, would naturally explode in terms of sales, because of the demand from business and schooling brought on by COVID-19. </p>
ArvindV
<p>To put this in to context. In usa estimated PC sold are 15.28 million in Q2 2020</p><p><br></p><p>So that's 3.82 million windows and 11.46 million chromebooks sold in USA</p>