Last quarter, Chromebooks saw 275% year-over-year growth up to 12 million units. The figure isn’t quite as unwieldy for Q2, but a 75% year-over-year growth is still extremely respectable, with the category hitting 11.9 million shipments, per the latest figures from research firm, Canalys.
Chromebooks joined the rest of the PC market in getting an overall bump from the pandemic. Standard tablets and PCs saw healthy increases as consumers scrambled to create work from home setups, while Google’s OS got an even larger rise as schools implemented remote learning.
As schools in a number of locations have reopened more than a year into the pandemic, however, Chromebook sales are still hot. Google is certainly looking to capitalize on that success by once again attempting to extend the operating system’s reach beyond its educational foothold.
The company is clearly eyeing the enterprise segment, which may be welcoming of systems that are both easy to deploy and lock down.
Image Credits: Canalys
“With Chrome’s hold over the education space relatively secure, Google is set to bet big on the commercial segment this year,” Canalys’ Brian Lynch said in a statement. We expect to see a strong focus on attracting small businesses with updated services, such as the new ‘Individual’ subscription tier for Google Workspace and promotions on CloudReady licenses to repurpose old PCs for deployment alongside existing Chromebook fleets.”
After the launch of multiple M1-based systems, Apple, too, is making a big play for business. The company recently launched a new Apple at Work site.
“Whether your organization has 10 devices or 10,000, Apple fits easily into your existing infrastructure,” the company writes of its new IT efforts. “Zero-touch deployment allows IT to configure and manage remotely, and IT can tailor the setup process to any team. So every Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV is ready to go from the start.”
With Windows 11 arriving later this year, Microsoft will no doubt be making its own case to maintain dominance over the office — remote and otherwise.