As pandemic buying continues, Chromebook shipments soared 275% in Q1, says analyst
- Reference: 1620220449
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/05/chromebook_shipments_canalys_figures/
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The vendor with the largest total number of sales-in was HP, with 4.36 million units leaving its factories, up 633.7 per cent year-on-year. HP said Chromebook sales had quadrupled in its Q1 ended 31 January to account for $1.69bn or 16 per cent of its PC business revenues.
HP CEO Enrique Lores sounded like the company could have sold more if only those pesky component shortages hadn't been a determining factor, saying on a [1]Q1 conference call it had "increased inventory" and was "changing...the connections that we have with certain component providers."
[2]
[3]
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Shortages of components - specifically ICs, display panels and CPUs - have been a [5]feature of the tech industry since the pandemic forced demand for PCs through the roof. As a relatively low-margin piece of hardware, Chromebooks supply could not match customers' orders.
Vendor
Q1 2021 shipments
Q1 2021 market share
Q1 2020 shipments
Q1 2020 market share
Annual growth
HP
4.364 million
36.4%
595,000
18.6%
633.7%
Lenovo
3.108 million
25.9%
760,000
23.8%
308.8%
Acer
1.428 million
11.9%
514,000
16.1%
178.1%
Samsung
1.200 million
10.0%
51,000
1.6%
2,233.0%
Dell
1.005 million
8.4%
503,000
15.7%
99.9%
Others
874,000
7.3%
775,000
24.2%
12.8%
Total
11.979 million
100%
3.198 million
100%
274.6%
Source: Canalys PC analysis (sales-in) May 2021
Trailing HP was Lenovo, which grew its shipments to 3.1m from a base of 760,000 a year earlier. Third placed Acer shipped 1.428 million units to distributors and retailers during the quarter, up from 514,000.
The quarter saw the emergence of Samsung as a competitive player in the Chromebook space, growing from 51,000 in Q1 2020 to 1.2 million.
During 2020, Samsung expanded its Chromebook line-up with a bevy of new models, and pushed into new territories. At the tail-end of the year, Samsung launched its basic Chromebook 4 and 4+ machines in the UK, following their 2019 launch in the US and South Korea.
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The company also released a flood of more expensive Chromebooks, including the [7]Galaxy model. The successor to this machine, introduced earlier this year, is also the first Chrome OS device to come with a QLED display.
Bryan Lynch, Canalys research analyst, said the results confirm the transformation of Chromebooks into a "mainstream computing product."
[8]10 years later, Chrome OS starts to look like a proper OS with hardware diagnostics and the ability to scan documents
[9]Same old complexity beneath Windows 10 Cloud Config means it's unlikely to compete with the likes of Chrome OS
[10]Extended lockdowns to fuel 'strongest growth on record' for PCs into EMEA for Q1
[11]The kids are all right... for Google: Web giant talks up 40 new Chromebook models, school-focused ChromeOS
"While the education sector still accounts for the majority of shipments, their popularity with consumers and traditional commercial customers has reached new heights over the course of the last year. HP and Lenovo dominate the Chromebook market, but the boom has been a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, allowing vendors such as Acer and Samsung to carve out substantial shares within the PC market by catering specifically to Chromebook demand," he said.
But can that growth be sustained? Lynch said the growth of flexible working, paired with a degree of cost-sensitivity at smaller businesses, will help drive sales in the long term, but said it would require Google to work with OEMS and the channel in a "substantial messaging and evangelisation push."
Of the impact of the semiconductor shortage on shipments, Canalys research director Rishabh Doshi told us: "Most of the Chromebook shipments this quarter are pre-shortage, catering to backlog orders.
[12]
"On a wider scale, taking all categories into consideration, supply is definitely not meeting demand, however vendors are prioritizing certain orders, including Chromebooks, where the visibility into short-term demand is better than products in other segments, such as SMB and Enterprise." He added: "The shortage is on a substrate level, affecting material and smaller components, and almost everywhere in the downstream supply there is inventory build-up, so vendors like HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc are buying more parts than they can manufacture from the supply chain.
"Chromebooks rely on lesser components compared to a premium laptop, therefore the impact of the shortage is less severe. If anything, Q1 2021 was very close to Canalys’ forecast as the effect of shortages was expected as the industry ramps up."
On the software side, we've seen Google try to cultivate the ChromeOS as a more meaningful platform for work, [13]introducing native scanning support in one recent update, while also [14]extending the capabilities for IT bods to deploy and manage large fleets of Chromebooks. ®
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[1] https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/02/25/hp-inc-hpq-q1-2021-earnings-call-transcript/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YJLBGGBRqbsIIw9tAf9jjgAAAM0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJLBGGBRqbsIIw9tAf9jjgAAAM0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJLBGGBRqbsIIw9tAf9jjgAAAM0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/26/idc_pc_figures/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJLBGGBRqbsIIw9tAf9jjgAAAM0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/08/the_samsung_galaxy_chromebook/
[8] http://www.theregister.com/2021/04/22/chromeos_update/
[9] http://www.theregister.com/2021/02/03/windows_10_cloud_config/
[10] http://www.theregister.com/2021/03/04/idc_expects_pc_sales_to/
[11] http://www.theregister.com/2021/02/18/googles_next_chromeos_update_is/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJLBGGBRqbsIIw9tAf9jjgAAAM0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/22/chromeos_update/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/18/googles_next_chromeos_update_is/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Beats me why.
Been working in schools and deploying Chromebooks for 7 years in their thousands. Chances of a device actually stopping working because Google switched it off: 0%. Chances of it being broke in between: 10%. Chances of the Chromebook being deemed obsolete on the asset registers before you get there: 100%
Pretty much any business or school has a 4-year replacement programme for devices like that, so who cares if it stops working in year 5/6/7. But, pretty much, they don't - Google only seem to stop the cheap Chinese junk, they still push updates for anything major-brand.
And given the price of them, I'd far rather buy you a new Chromebook every year than a new laptop every four years.
Re: Beats me why.
We just don't have enough landfill Android these days, time to unleash the deluge of landfill Chromebooks. 1 per child per year, onwards and upwards! (Like Wall-E on a rubbish mountain.)
School Usage
Figures massively boosted by local schools demanding you purchase chromebooks for when they went back to school.
Normally I wouldn’t touch a chromebook but essentially bullied into getting one so kids arent the only ones in class that don't have one.
I would be so angry if my collegues purchased one of these with business funds.
It sounds quite draconian but I would even go so far as to say that anyone working in IT that can perform their job using just a chromebook... probably doesn't need to be in the team and can probably be let go.
Yes, you might have a task entirely making diagrams or spec documents but part of your job is still to use version control, keep internal IP documents safe and offline and use internal communication software.
Anonymous, so my collegues don't start to worry too much... ;)
Ahhh, the chips!
That could have gone into the HP gear we were 'hoping' to receive this summer. It could be an interesting year. And as far as chromebooks, the old saying applies, if you can't say anything nice, keep your thoughts to yourself.
Beats me why.
Unless things have changed, the life of a Chromebook was from the date of manufacture, not the date of purchase. I wouldn't touch one of these if that was still the case.
Update - they did extend the life of some models by the looks of it...
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/chromebook-6-years-expiration