Google's Chromebooks Overtake Apple's iPads for First Time in U.S. Education Market

MacRumors · Dec 1, 2014

Apple's iPad has lost its lead over Google's line of Chromebook laptops in the U.S. education market as Google shipped more devices to schools last quarter, according to figures released by IDC (via the Financial Times). In Q3 2014, IDC notes that Google shipped 715,500 Chromebooks to U.S. schools while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads. Analysts note that this advantage for Google's Chromebooks can be attributed to their low cost, which starts at $199 for some models.

Samsung, HP, Dell and Acer make Chromebooks and has been active promoting the device to school districts, she added. Low upfront costs and simpler device management for schools' IT departments has increased their appeal, compared with Apple's higher-priced tablets, which start at $379 for last year's iPad Air, including educational discounts.

While the iPad's touchscreen makes it a versatile device, the Chromebook's integrated keyboard is also a factor in its appeal. "As the average age of the student grows the need for a keyboard becomes very important," said Ms Singh.

The report also notes that the Apple still holds a commanding lead over other tablet manufacturers in the U.S. education market, as numbers from the company in July stated that the iPad had an 85% market share.

The news follows a report about the worldwide tablet market issued by IDC last week, which stated that year-over-year growth is expected to slow to 7.2% in 2014 from 52.5% in 2013. Analysts estimated that the market slowdown can be attributed to a decline in iPad shipments, as Apple is expected to ship 64.9 million iPads this calendar year which is a decline of 12.7% from 2013. Apple is rumored to be preparing a 12.2-inch "iPad Pro" for early next year, which could be equipped with faster specs than the iPad Air 2 and may be aimed at the enterprise market.

Article Link: Google's Chromebooks Overtake Apple's iPads for First Time in U.S. Education Market

Eweie · Dec 1, 2014

Kids don't know ****.

St0rMl0rD · Dec 1, 2014

Eweie said:
Kids don't know ****.

You do realise it's not the kids that make the decision what their school buys, right?

xeni · Dec 1, 2014

b-b-b-but they'll get SCROOGLED!!

kas23 · Dec 1, 2014

This shouldn't come as a surprise. School districts cannot afford to pay the Apple tax.

Rogifan · Dec 1, 2014

Yes because we're supposed to believe anything reported by IDC. Last quarter they reported Apple's world wide Mac sales at 4.9M. The real figure according to Apple's quarterly earnings release was 5.5M. Why should we trust their reporting (whether good or bad for Apple)? Where are they getting their figures from as I'm not aware of Apple (or Google) releasing sales figures.

doppelganger · Dec 1, 2014

It's because of the new state testing associated with the Common Core State Standards. The test is all online and the essay portion of the exam requires keyboarding skills. The testing environment is not easily translated to the iPad screen or keyboard.

jayducharme · Dec 1, 2014

In my experience, there are two factors at work. One obviously is the price. Many school administrators are concerned with cost above everything.

The other factor is school IT departments which are often led by people who will avoid Apple at any cost. Apple needs to put more effort into school technical support if they want to maintain a lead in the classroom. Currently, if a school buys an an Apple device, they're on their own. I was hoping the IBM partnership would help fix this, but their alliance is still too new to judge.

The Doctor11 · Dec 1, 2014

No!!! This is like when your watching a sports game and your team is winning the whole time then they start losing...
Go Apple go!

JackieInCo · Dec 1, 2014

It must be a money saving decision for the schools.

vmachiel · Dec 1, 2014

kas23 said:
This shouldn't come as a surprise. School districts cannot afford to pay the Apple tax.

They'd rather pay with their kid's data instead.

dukeblue219 · Dec 1, 2014

doppelganger said:
It's because of the new state testing associated with the Common Core State Standards. The test is all online and the essay portion of the exam requires keyboarding skills. The testing environment is not easily translated to the iPad screen or keyboard.

Depends on where you live. Common Core is not a curriculum nor is it a specific test. Your state or district will implement it in its own way, so I doubt this is the reason nationally

ArtOfWarfare · Dec 1, 2014

This is an Apples to Oranges comparison.

iPads are tablets. Chromebooks are netbooks

No physical keyboard makes cranking out 20 page reports in high school kind of a PITA.

DipDog3 · Dec 1, 2014

Kids were too busy playing Clash of Clans & Kim K on the iPads, so they moved to a platform that lacks all of the popular apps.

Aluminum213 · Dec 1, 2014

iPads had a good run

The Doctor11 · Dec 1, 2014

Aluminum213 said:
iPads had a good run

Don't talk like their dead!

MisakixMikasa · Dec 1, 2014

DipDog3 said:
Kids were too busy playing Clash of Clans & Kim K on the iPads, so they moved to a platform that lacks all of the popular apps.

Dude...If school does not want kids to play games, why would school load games on its iPads? Why would school allow kids download any apps? All situation is highly irrelevant here.

Keep mind, there are thousands of web app available on Chrome store as well. If you have Chrome on your computer, just to check out.

----------

The Doctor11 said:
Don't talk like their dead!

It is half dead as PC... You have it declining in a year. Unless Apple can come up something dramatically new, it will keep declining.

JackieInCo · Dec 1, 2014

MisakixMikasa said:
Dude...If school does not want kids to play games, why would school load games on its iPads? Why would school allow kids download any apps? All situation is highly irrelevant here.

Keep mind, there are thousands of web app available on Chrome store as well. If you have Chrome on your computer, just to check out.

----------

It is half dead as PC... You have it declining in a year. Unless Apple can come up something dramatically new, it will keep declining.

Don't Chromebooks have the Google playstore built in?

69Mustang · Dec 1, 2014

Rogifan said:
Yes because we're supposed to believe anything reported by IDC. Last quarter they reported Apple's world wide Mac sales at 4.9M. The real figure according to Apple's quarterly earnings release was 5.5M. Why should we trust their reporting (whether good or bad for Apple)? Where are they getting their figures from as I'm not aware of Apple (or Google) releasing sales figures.

Well Tim Cook has been known to quote IDC numbers so there must be something there. Also the link you provided states the numbers are estimates. As for where/how they get their info, I'm pretty sure it's proprietary. They do have a methodology page on their website if you want more: http://www.idc.com/about/methodology.jsp

edit: IDC was who Cook quoted in April regarding Apple having the largest tablet marketshare in education.

One interesting thing, they will sometimes pre-release their reports to the vendors just to gauge accuracy. Is Apple one of those vendors? Who knows. But if Tim Cook quotes their numbers, I think it's an assumption one could make.

Ludatyk · Dec 1, 2014

The same fate iPhone was under I believe the iPads will face... The fact Google devices are low cost is always the deciding factor. Although iPads & iPhones are the better buy (IMO) due to what a user get across the board, the experience.

MisakixMikasa · Dec 1, 2014

Ludatyk said:
The same fate iPhone was under I believe the iPads will face... The fact Google devices are low cost is always the deciding factor. Although iPads & iPhones are the better buy (IMO) due to what a user get across the board, the experience.

After iOS 8 and Lollipop do you seriously think iOS still offering better user experiences? I certainly seen the difference is narrowing to none. Maybe there are more tablet app for iPad, but for phone, you can find just many apps on Play Store.

Only thing that makes iPhone and iPad standout is its integration within Apple's ecosystem. But that does not really comes to play if you only have one or two devices and use other platform as well.

Price is one reason for Android to overtake Apple, not it is not the only reason.

Babbles · Dec 1, 2014

MisakixMikasa said:
Dude...If school does not want kids to play games, why would school load games on its iPads? Why would school allow kids download any apps? All situation is highly irrelevant here.

Keep mind, there are thousands of web app available on Chrome store as well. If you have Chrome on your computer, just to check out.

----------

It is half dead as PC... You have it declining in a year. Unless Apple can come up something dramatically new, it will keep declining.

DipDog3 said:
Kids were too busy playing Clash of Clans & Kim K on the iPads, so they moved to a platform that lacks all of the popular apps.

JackieInCo said:
Don't Chromebooks have the Google playstore built in?

It doesn't matter either way. Educators have tools that prevent the download of any application on the kids tablets. They also have the tools to see what a kid is doing on that tablet. The latter can only be done while on school property, however, the tablet is still locked when the kid takes it home.

I've worked with several schools that provide tablets (ios/android) to their kids and it really does depend on their IT department and finances. Unless the school can get a good discount, iPads are extremely expensive for the limited things they can do compared to other tablets around.

I personally wish they would marry, have babies, so I can get the best of both worlds.

CEmajr · Dec 1, 2014

MisakixMikasa said:
After iOS 8 and Lollipop do you seriously think iOS still offering better user experiences? I certainly seen the difference is narrowing to none. Maybe there are more tablet app for iPad, but for phone, you can find just many apps on Play Store.

Only thing that makes iPhone and iPad standout is its integration within Apple's ecosystem. But that does not really comes to play if you only have one or two devices and use other platform as well.

Price is one reason for Android to overtake Apple, not it is not the only reason.

It's the primary reason by far (plus the sheer number of manufacturers as compared to Apple). As we know the vast majority of that "huge Android marketshare" is low-end junk sold in China and India.

Fact is that Apple will never compete on price in the race to the bottom. All we're seeing here Google offering a far cheaper low to no margin device that budget strapped school districts are buying. It's what we call buying marketshare. So I do think that short of slashing iPad prices to compete on the low-end, Apple won't be able to be the marketshare leader. However by all accounts they will remain the profit leader (the metric that actually matters to corporations) since Google and other companies offering dirt cheap devices are making little to no profit from them.

Kissaragi · Dec 1, 2014

Can understand that, chrome books are perfect for the education market.

Xenomorph · Dec 1, 2014

It's way cheaper for a Chromebook (with keyboard standard) vs an iPad w/ Keyboard case. Like, half the price.

My daughter's school started doing Chromebooks this past year.

They started with school-wide WiFi, so "online only" Chromebook w/ Google Drive has been perfect for what they do.

Google's Chromebooks Overtake Apple's iPads for First Time in U.S. Education Market

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