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IDC: Chromebooks Outsold Macs for the First Time in 2020

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New data shows that Chromebook laptops outsold Mac computers for the first time over the course of a full year in 2020, a year largely driven by commercial demand for lightweight, powerful, and affordable personal computers. The data from IDC (via GeekWire) shows that Windows continues to dominate the market, although its share declined over the course of the year as Chrome OS surged past macOS into second place.

For the full year, the market share of Windows was down 4.9% in 2020 compared to 2019, while the Mac grew from 6.7% to 7.5%. IDC's data includes collective information about desktops, laptops, and workstations, and doesn't provide a breakdown of specific different product types. It is worth noting, however, that Chrome OS includes products made by Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

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Demand for personal computers skyrocketed during 2020, largely thanks to the shift to working and learning at home. Market data estimates that in Q4 of 2020, the Mac grew by around 30% compared to the same quarter the previous year. In comparison to other makers, Apple had the most significant year-over-year growth in the quarter.

In addition to market shifts due to changes in work and school patterns, the fourth quarter of 2020 notably also saw Apple launched its first Apple silicon Macs, which have been very well received.

Article Link: IDC: Chromebooks Outsold Macs for the First Time in 2020
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/17/chromebooks-outsold-macs-2020/
That’s not really a computer though. It’s an internet terminal used by stay home moms who post on FB about 5G Bill Gates Illuminati space lasers and chakra cleaning green juice activated almonds.
 
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Probably school districts + parents of remote learners pushing the sales up, which is awesome imo. Chromebooks are the perfect education machines for almost every scenario besides a couple that macOS/Windows are required for. Cheap, have a microphone + speakers + webcam, easy to remote manage, very reliable too.
 
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Unsurprising given how cheap they are to bulk-purchase.

That, plus the ease and equally well valued Google Workspace make them actually a good deal for many use cases. When you're 'in' the Google Workspace, pretty much everything an employee for an organisation/student or educator requires is there - even down to their Office variants.

But they are at the end of the day a terminal, and if the internet goes down, work grinds to a halt.
 
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Schools in my province are currently waiting on more orders of ChromeBooks for the students, we just had a massive spike in COVID-19 cases and our government shut down the schools fairly quick in response.

They are doing the smart thing though, only issuing the Chromebooks to students who are in need of them, as opposed to blindly ordering 1,000's of them and giving one to every child. They checked with myself and other parents to see if the child already had immediate access to web enabled hardware to do the online learning.
 
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I have two kids who started remote learning at the tail end of the last school year and that has continued into the current school year. Our school district uses the Google Classroom platform for teaching and the district provided low-end Chromebooks to the kids who needed computers. We’re an all-Apple computer household, but we ended up buying two relatively inexpensive Chromebooks for the kids to use for school. They are not powerful enough for gaming or video editing, but they’re adequate for class work and zoom calls.

The volume of Chromebooks sales is interesting, but part of the sales were likely driven by the need for inexpensive computers for remote work and remote learning. Plus the price point is a lot different between Chromebooks and Macs.

(For what it’s worth, both of my sons noted that they would rather have a MacBook or MacBook Pro.)😏
 
Chromebooks are by far the best choice as primary school handout laptops. I'm still bothered by LAUSD having wasted so much $ on iPads a while back. Seems this time everyone got it right because there was a real problem to solve, not a solution looking for one.

If they're using Google Meet for video calls, a Chromebook is too slow to comfortably edit a Google Doc at the same time. That's a severe limitation, so it must be fine with Zoom (much more efficient) if people are using it. Ironic.
 
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30% growth doesn't sound like Chromebook bit the Apple.
Kind of sad that Windows lost that much ground to it's competitors (and in general!) in these days !
 
buttongerald said:
Schools in my province are currently waiting on more orders of ChromeBooks for the students, we just had a massive spike in COVID-19 cases and our government shut down the schools fairly quick in response.

They are doing the smart thing though, only issuing the Chromebooks to students who are in need of them, as opposed to blindly ordering 1,000's of them and giving one to every child. They checked with myself and other parents to see if the child already had immediate access to web enabled hardware to do the online learning.
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Our situation is very similar. Our schools were shut down early in the pandemic and the closures have continued through this school year. The school did a series of polls to determine the technology needs of the students last year. There was a limited supply of Chromebooks available to the kids that needed them. I wasn’t thrilled about having to buy two new Chromebooks at once, but I also didn’t want to take any resources away from kids/families that needed them more than we do.
 
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