Emil Protalinski at GeekWire:
New numbers show 2020 was the first year that Chromebooks outsold Macs, posting impressive market share gains at the expense of Windows. Computers powered by Google’s Chrome OS have outsold Apple’s computers in individual quarters before, but 2020 was the first full year that Chrome OS took second place. Microsoft’s Windows still retained majority market share, but also took a big hit as both Chrome OS and macOS gained share.
It seems to me that there are a couple interesting things going on here. First, yes Chromebooks outselling Macs for the year is some kind of moment. But: second, that it wasn’t actually at the expense of Macs, which also grew market share, but rather at the expense of Windows.
There’s a lot of nuance here, first and foremost because quite a few manufacturers make Chromebooks — a wide range of SKUs at a wide range of price points — while only Apple makes Macs. And yes, a lot of those Chromebook price points are very low, far lower than any Mac. Also, Chromebooks have clearly been cleaning up in the education market — a market which Apple oddly seemingly ceded — for several years now. Perhaps that is having a sort of halo effect, especially in the era of COVID, where students and parents alike are stuck at home in need of computers.
Apple might counter that they didn’t cede the education market, but rather they think both Macs at the higher price points and iPads at the lower price point can fill all needs. But it’s more complicated than that as while the machines continue to converge in various ways, they’re still can’t do the exact same things, so it’s a weird choice for educators to have to make.
Anyway, I imagine Apple is fine with the high level notion here that Chromebooks are growing faster than Macs because they’re likely eating up a market (aside from education) which Apple doesn’t aspire to play in (aside from with the aforementioned iPads). Microsoft? They’re probably less thrilled. It has taken far long than I perhaps originally thought when I first heard about Chrome OS, but Google is slow and steadily gaining ground with their simple, browser-based approach to computing…
