The pandemic saw unprecedented growth in Chromebook and tablet sales thanks to the boost in remote work and learning. But of course, such artificial growth wasn’t to last forever and the boost is now starting to wear off. Chromebooks and tablets recorded their first decline since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.
Chromebook shipments declined 29.8% YoY (year on year) in Q3 2021 with volumes dropping to 6.5 million units while tablet shipments recorded a 9.4% YoY drop to 42.3 million units, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.
Restrictions and lockdowns have been eased of late across the globe which has led to increased spending in other categories, in turn weakening Chromebook and tablet demand. The lifting of restrictions also means that people are resuming work in offices and students are going back to school, further cutting tablet and Chromebook demand due to decreased dependence on them.
Anuroopa Nataraj, senior research analyst with IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers says, “Chromebooks continue to increase their footprint in emerging markets such as Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and China), Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa, but sales in these regions account for less than 13% of the overall Chromebook volume and hence are far from moving the global market.”
HP has taken the greatest hit when it comes to YoY growth, recording a decline of 66.1% in Q3 2021 when compared to the same period last year. The least affected seems to be Samsung with an actual 0.2% growth, while all of the other top 5 Chromebook sellers have seen declines. However, Samsung is the last of the top 5, with Lenovo leading with 1.5 million Chromebook shipments. Lenovo is followed by Acer, Dell, HP, and finally Samsung.
The scene in the tablet market is different with Apple not only maintaining the lead in terms of 3Q21 shipments but also recording the highest growth of 4.6%. Also recording growth is Lenovo with a figure of 2.1%. The remaining 3 brands have all seen a decline, contributing to an overall 53.1% drop in growth in 3Q21 when compared to 3Q20.
“Though reduced demand is largely to blame to for the declines in these categories, limited supply has also been a factor,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. “The combination of these two factors is likely to create opportunity for PC makers as shared components, production capacity, and freight availability could be shifted to other categories such as Windows notebooks or perhaps gaming PCs, which continue to see higher demand and greater profitability.”
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