The Chromebook market saw explosive growth over the past year, riding on the remote learning and work-from-home wave. Compared to just 2.8 million Chromebook shipments in Q1 2020, the market grew 3.57x in Q1 2021 to reach shipments of 13 million units. Samsung achieved a whopping 496% year-over-year growth in Chromebook shipments during the quarter.
IDC's (International Data Corporation) latest report suggests that Samsung shipped over a million Chromebooks in Q1 2021. While the company still maintained its fifth position in the global Chromebook market, its market share improved from 6.1% in Q1 2020 to 8% in Q1 2021. The South Korean firm was the second-fastest-growing Chromebook brand. HP, which saw the highest growth (633.9%) in the Chrome OS market, was ranked first with 4.4 million shipments and a 33.5% market share.
Lenovo shipped 3.3 million Chromebooks in Q1 2021 and grabbed a 25.6% share of the global market. The Chinese tech giant saw a 356.2% year-over-year growth in this space. Acer didn't grow as much as other brands did, and fell down from the first position to the third position. It shipped 1.9 million Chromebooks and had a 14.5% market share. Dell is ranked fourth in this list with 1.5 million shipments (327% year-over-year growth) and an 11.3% market share.
Samsung launched just one new Chrome OS-based laptop over the past year: Galaxy Chromebook 2. It features a QLED screen and a 2-in-1 convertible design. It has a backlit keyboard, a large trackpad, 10th Gen. Intel Core processor, 8GB RAM, 64GB/128GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, impressively loud 10W stereo speakers, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and a 45Wh battery. The company may launch more Chromebooks later this year.
Despite such massive growth, the Chromebook market is still isn't as big as the tablet market. As you can see in the graph below, over 40 million tablets were sold in Q1 2021. It means that the tablet market is still 3x bigger than the Chromebook market. Samsung launched the Galaxy Tab S7, Galaxy Tab S7+, and the Galaxy Tab A7 over the past year and was ranked second in the global tablet market. The company saw a 60% year-over-year growth in the tablet segment.
