- Tablet shipments grew 43% while Chromebooks grew a whopping 122% in third quarter.
- Tablets are expected to find themselves at the heart of every digital transformation going forward.
- Canalys expects high shipment volumes of Chromebooks to continue into the start of 2021.
Bengaluru: Tablets and Chromebooks are the new hotspots for growth in the PC market as the pandemic continued to positively influence ownership and usage for various purposes.
The worldwide tablet market posted stellar growth in the third quarter of this year, with shipments of 44.3 million units, up 43 per cent year-on-year. Meanwhile, Chromebook shipments hit a record high of 9.4 million units, growing 122 per cent from a year ago.
Vendors and channel partners shifted resource allocation towards production and distribution of tablets and Chromebooks to meet this surging demand, which is expected to continue in the short-term.
Victoria Li, a Canalys Analyst, said that tablets have come back from the dead as they deliver the perfect balance of mobility and computing power at a wide range of price points during such a crucial time.
The tablet market has been in free-fall since 2015, with the last two quarters being the only quarters of growth in the last five years.
“Tablets are a natural choice for first-time PC users who want something uncomplicated and affordable to work with. The natural extension of Android and iOS on tablets makes it easy for parents, students and educators who dabbled with extended remote learning for the first time in their lives and prefer the ease of installing apps that these platforms offer,” Li said.
Another contributing factor, she said is the role these tablets play in the accelerated pace of digital transformation that big and small companies are undertaking.
Helping businesses ride the storm
“Connected tablets allow businesses to deploy endpoints at crucial stages in their customer and salesforce journeys, thereby helping these businesses ride the storm. Tablets will find themselves at the heart of every digital transformation going forward,” she said.
According to the research firm Canalys, Apple maintained pole position in the tablet category with shipments of 15.2 million units and growth of 47 per cent. Samsung placed second with stunning growth of 80 per cent to break the 9 million unit shipment mark for the first time since Q4 2015.
Huawei built on its strong position in China and Europe with the growth of 38 per cent to secure third place with shipments of 5.1 million units.
Amazon and Lenovo rounded out the top five vendors, with the growth of 8 per cent and 59 per cent respectively.
Vendors selling Chromebooks also saw impressive growth continue into the third quarter of this year. HP led the market, more than doubling volumes from a year ago to hit 3.2 million units, with the majority of shipments coming in its home market of the US.
Lenovo records strong growth
Lenovo hugely ramped up Chromebook shipments, growing over 300 per cent, to move into second place with 1.8 million units. Dell, Acer, and Asus made up the remainder of the top five, with each posting strong growth and record Chromebook shipment volumes.
Ishan Dutt, a Canalys Analyst, said that Chromebooks emerged as the centrepiece of the education segment’s digital response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Uncertainty in how school terms will proceed remains at the forefront of educators’ minds in the face of secondary lockdowns and protocols related to dealing with infections within a school’s population. As a result, institutions turned to Chromebooks to deliver a relatively budget-friendly and easy to manage contingency to ensure minimal disruption over the course of the school year,” he said.
Moreover, he said that Chromebooks have played an important part in satisfying consumers’ and SMBs’ needs to get their hands on a basic computing device.
Although production and distribution ramped up, he said the huge surge in demand led to orders being unfulfilled, and Canalys expects high shipment volumes to continue into the start of 2021.