This news is not exactly Android related, but since Chromebooks are part of the ecosystem Google is trying to create, we still care about them. Besides, some of you might even be reading this on a Chromebook right now!
Over the last few years, PC sales have been slowing down thanks to the explosive popularity of tablets, that’s been happening ever since the iPad was first announced and continued with the wave of Android tablets in the market which, even if they’re not successful individually, they sure are a force against the PC market.
Now, the PC has another reason to be afraid, Chromebooks appear to be here to stay. Over the last 8 months, Chromebooks account for about 25 percent of all laptop sales under $300 according to data from the NPD Group. That’s an incredible growth considering that in the first quarter of the year, Chromebooks accounted for just 4 to 5 percent of the market, and just 1 percent in 2012.
This is all happening not only because Chromebooks and Chrome OS have gotten substantially better, but also because the price has fallen dramatically, you can get a great Samsung Chromebook for the very low price of $249, I bet you can’t find a decent Windows laptop in that price. This has caused for PC shipments to fall 4 percent in the last year and the estimates say that this year the drop will be somewhere in the region of 7.8 percent.
Caesar Sengupta, head of product development for Chromebooks says:
“We’re seeing tremendous growth, without a doubt – massive, massive growth”
This proves that people are accepting the cloud as their home with better and more services depending on it every day. Well, that and the fact that Chromebooks are very affordable and the OS has no maintenance compared to a Windows laptop. The big promise of Chrome OS is that as time goes by, the OS will get more secure and faster,with updates every few weeks. Chromebooks are a great alternative for those who still want the productivity of a larger screen and a keyboard/trackpad combo that a tablet can’t give them.